Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com

In case you haven’t heard (which you probably have), Amazon founder and innovation extraordinaire, Jeff Bezos, has purchased The Washington Post. The purchase reportedly cost him $250 million, which is a measly 1% of his net worth (estimated at $28 billion). In the midst of its 7^th straight year of declining revenues, The Washington Post isn’t exactly thriving in the digital age. So, what exactly is Bezos’ motive for acquiring the 136 year old newspaper?

 In his letter to employees of The Washington Post, Bezos reassured them that they will not simply be a mouthpiece for private interests, and I certainly think he’s telling the truth. I believe Bezos, long-hailed as a business visionary, has some big plans for the newspaper. What those plans may be is just speculation as of now. I would be willing to bet this plan has something to do with the integration of his e-commerce poster child, Amazon, and the newly acquired media outlet. He seems to want to solve the old problem of media revenue generation; as long as print media has existed there has been two methods for bringing in revenue, subscription and advertising. Look for Bezos to create a third. The decline of print media is a problem that no one has been able to tackle thus far, but Bezos seems ready to accept the challenge. In his letter, Bezos also acknowledges the changing tides of print media; he then went on to proclaim, “We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment.” Only time will tell if the internet entrepreneur will be able to cease the demise of print media as we know it.