Part old-line newspaper, part curated online content, 'The Green,' should've been music to investors' ears. Why didn't anyone bite? Greg Lindsay investigates:

Two stories appeared on the Web just before the 4th of July holiday that pretty much plotted the media business' general narrative arc, circa 2006: Jack Shafer's account of the "Incredible Shrinking Newspaper," and the news in The Wall Street Journal that PaidContents Rafat Ali had become the latest solo journalist to take money (subscription required) from the venture capitalists begging to bankroll him.

The lesson to be gleaned from all this: Old media is not only disaggregating, it's atomizing into individuals-whether that be civic-minded amateurs; techies with a nifty algorithim, or entrepreneurial journos. It's apparent in the blow-by-blow accounts of Tribune Co.'s battling board members and Om Malik's decision to effectively leave Business 2.0 to run GigaOm full-time.