Some folks bristle when columnists hurl prognostications from Mount Olympus, but making predictions is a time-honored staple of magazine journalism, and who am I to part with tradition? So, here goes. I’ll dust off my crystal ball and tell you what I see for 2007 and beyond.

As you attempt to convey your company’s message to the outside world, you must remain mindful of these four media trends:

1. Print will continue its inexorable decline. Newspaper circulation is dropping like a stone, magazine revenue is flat-lining, and asking a younger person (anyone under 50) to actually read a print publication is like asking Superman to cuddle up to a piece of kryptonite. Notably, new online phenomena such as Craigslist.org are slaughtering print classified advertising, the bedrock of revenue for many publications.

2. Print will never die completely. The elite — the true influencers — will always want to pick up The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times in the morning. Human nature only changes so much. Ergo, insiders in the world of aviation maintenance will always want to pick up Aviation Maintenance magazine.

3. Grassroots media will explode. Force-fed programming will go the way of radio soap operas and movie newsreels, as Web-based citizen journalism chips away at hierarchical corporate structures. During an Aviation Today Webinar, for example, the audience e-mails questions to the moderator, who presents them to the speakers for discussion, in real time. The result is a spontaneous debate among a widely dispersed network of subject matter experts.

4. Community media will grow in influence. Social Web sites centered on particular interests will become de facto lobbying groups. The Internet will continue its evolution into a conversational beehive. Indeed, there is now a Web site for every conceivable interest, niche, hobby, business or proclivity.

Online communications are on track for huge growth. RSS news feeds, podcasts, blogs, and Webinars will play an increasingly powerful role in marketing, for years to come. According to Wainhouse Research, a Boston-based communications research and consulting firm that specializes in rich media, the demand for online, rich-media presentations will grow at a compound rate of 90 percent a year, for the next three years.

Remember: the Web should be used to enhance your print-based message, not undermine or replace it. If your message is inherently weak or incoherent, flashy Internet gimmicks won’t bail you out. You’ll just fail faster. Spend time on our Web site, Aviation Today, and you’ll see that content is king. The same solid reporting that goes into AM magazine goes into our web site’s content.

Topics covered in this particular issue of AM, such as procedural compliance, ground support equipment, bringing weather into the cockpit, the importance of tire pressure, and PMA parts, are covered by Aviation Today on a continual basis, within the site’s daily news feed and its weekly aviation newsletters. Search our Web site with a few precise keywords, and you’ll quickly dig up a wealth of online information on these topics that complements the printed editorial.

As part of this integrated approach to reportage, our podcast on PMA parts is worth checking out. Go to www.AviationToday.com to listen. You’ll notice that we recently re-designed our podcast page, to make it more compelling and easier to navigate.

Aviation Today has made a long-term commitment to embrace the cutting-edge technologies that have the power to transform a company’s sales and marketing. Today, there is no hotter technology than podcasting. Podcasting isn’t an arcane fad for techno-geeks or early adopters. Far from it. The New Oxford American Dictionary named "podcast" its "Word of the Year" in 2005, and in 2006 added the word to its online update of the dictionary.

Nearly every major media company is turning their premium content into podcasts, Webinars, blogs and other participatory online venues. The proliferation of viewpoints on the Internet can advance the dialogue in your industry faster than a handful of self-appointed experts, much as thousands of participants in an economic market can make the best choice about which products are best.

It’s as if an army of online Davids is taking on Goliath. I urge you to log onto Aviation Today, and join the battle of ideas.

John Persinos is publisher and editorial director of AviationToday.com. You can reach him at: 301-385-7211 or jpersinos@accessintel.com.