While you still can. Colorado’s oldest newspaper, The Rocky Mountain News, has lost $11 million in the first nine months of this year and might be shuttered as soon as next month, reports KUSA TV and the Associated Press.

Should this major metropolitan newspaper hit the dead pool it surely won’t be the last to do so.  The economics of newspaper publishing are difficult enough already, and as advertising dollars dry up, big newspapers will go further in the hole.

Google can deliver advertising more precisely targeted to whatever micro-niche a business is trying to reach, without having to bear the huge infrastructure costs of daily publishing and distribution.

To survive, newspapers will need to leverage the newsgathering capabilities they have, as well as the brand equity they still enjoy. They will need to get very good at capturing stories with handheld videocameras, and breaking those stories down into bite-sized chunks. 

The quaint morning ritual of picking up a newspaper has not even sentimental value to the iPod generation. Viva the RSS feed!