Publishers at the 2nd World Digital Publishing Conference in Amsterdam Thursday agreed on one thing when it comes to newspapers' uncertain future: the pace of development is always increasing, and being able to adapt to that constant change is vital to each newspaper's survival and success.

“I can't tell you what products and services will be available in five years. I have some ideas, but it is nonsense to guess,” Birger Magnus, deputy CEO of Schibsted, the Norway-based publishing group, told conference-goers. “The only thing we know is the speed of change is increasing, we have to be flexible and adapt.”

Schibsted is said to be making nearly half of its profits from digital media.

The World Digital Publishing Conference, which drew more than 400 newspaper and online publishing executives from 74 countries, ended Thursday with speakers encouraging publishers to take risks on digital platforms.

“We've made many mistakes,” Magnus said. “But we've learned from our mistakes and we move on.”

The rapid pace of change has made it impossible to wait and see how media might develop before needing to make decisions necessary to stay in the game, said Leon Levitt, vice president for digital media at Cox Newspapers in the United States.

“I think some people aren't as successful as they could be because they're waiting to see what will happen. I'm not sure if we have the right plan at Cox Newspapers, but we have a plan. I believe it's easier to make course corrections if you have a plan, rather than being a bottle bobbing in the ocean,” Levitt said.

Eamonn Byrne, business director for the World Association of Newspapers, told those attending that “failures are inevitable and newspaper companies have to have enough strategies to ensure that the inevitable failures are minimal.”

Dozens of strategies were presented at the conference, organised by WAN. To view presentation summaries, click here.

Future strategies will also be released in the forthcoming WAN report, “Envisioning the Newspaper 2020,” which served as the centrepiece of a conference session titled “A roadmap to the future of newspapers.” For more on the report, click here.