In 2001, Germany's economy was suffering, and the newspaper industry was going through everything the U.S. newspaper industry is going through now. Ad revenue was down, staff were cut and newspapers were sold. Yet, the crisis seems to have made newspapers in Germany stronger, and today, most are thriving, BusinessWeek reported.

German newspapers were forced “to take a hard look at their businesses before the Web started to hurt big time.”

For example, the once grey Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “risked alienating readers by printing colour photos on the front page and launched a sassy Sunday edition. The measures helped stop a slide in readership. Die Welt created a tabloid edition that helped lure younger readers. And the papers dared to raise prices. Even Bild, aimed at a working-class audience, in July boosted its newsstand price by 20 percent, to about 90 cents in most markets. The hikes, along with digital revenue, helped offset the loss in ads,” BusinessWeek reported Thursday.

And while publishers around the world have argued over how fast, or slow, newspapers should embrace and invest in new technology, German newspapers took advantage of how slow the Internet caught on with Europeans, which allowed them to learn from mistakes being made in the United States, according to BusinessWeek.

Bild then partnered with Deutsche Telekom, the largest Internet provider in Germany, to launch itself online, with minimal cost. Because of that early step, most of the newspaper's online readers now go straight to Bild's Web site, not through a search engine or other portal, BusinessWeek reported.

Bild is also an example to watch in the still-developing mobile playing field, as Bild has partnered with Vodafone to become a mobile phone provider, “selling prepaid airtime at the same newsstands that sell the paper,” and giving customers unlimited usage as long as they stay on bild.de, according to BusinessWeek. This has made Bild the top mobile news site in Germany.