After Steve Jobs told us that no one reads anymore, who tells us - once again that print is dead? None other than Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, in the Washington Post, June 5.

While Steve starts out with the term “media,” he really means “print media,” and he believes that in the foreseeable future it will be gone. Here are the pertinent segments of the interview:

WaPo: What is your outlook for the future of media?

In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion.

Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form (my emphasis - DGNK). Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.

WaPo: 10 years?

Yeah. If it’s 14 or if it’s 8, it’s immaterial to my fundamental point. . . . If we want TV to be more interactive, you’ll deliver it over an IP network. I mean, it’s sort of funny today. My son will stay up all night basically playing Xbox Live with friends that are in various parts of the world, and yet I can’t sit there in front of the TV and have the same kind of a social interaction around my favorite basketball game or golf match. It’s just because one of these things is delivered over an IP network and the other is not. . . .

Also in the world of 10 years from now, there are going to be far more producers of content than exist today. We’ve already started to see that certainly in the online world, but we’ve just scratched the surface.

. . . I always take my favorite case: I grew up in Detroit. I went to a place called Detroit Country Day School. They’ve got a great basketball team. Why can’t I sit in front of my television and watch the Country Day basketball game when I know darn well it’s being video-recorded at all times? It’s there. It’s just not easy to navigate to.

You can also view the video segment from which this clip was taken on this link>> by waiting until the video “Ballmer on Microsoft’s Mission” starts. Pause it, then select “Ballmer on the Future of Advertising” from the right side menu.

Time to get on the wagon and start looking at the many flavors of “cross media marketing!”