"According to the Print Media Association in the U.K., brands that have adopted a multimedia advertising approach are twice as likely to grow share than brands that adopt a single-media strategy," said Ruth de Aquino, a Brazilian researcher and editor who has been working on a project called Mudia.

Mudia, which stands for "Multimedia in a Digital Age," is funded by the European Union and is being conducted by the World Association of Newspapers and four other groups. Sixteen media outlets in Britain, France, Spain and Sweden were surveyed on their methods for publishing content on multiple platforms, ranging from print to online.

Ms. de Aquino said most of the papers struggled with the idea at first. "There is no vision because there is no money," one media executive told a Mudia researcher in what has been an all-too-common refrain.

Nevertheless, several themes emerged:

  Define your multimedia model: This is the hardest task for newspapers getting into the convergence game. Some editors think multimedia merely involves the automatic sharing of content among journalists working on different technological platforms, but gradually, newspapers are figuring out how to integrate their operations so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

  Beware of middle managers: Ms. de Aquino said the top executives and the frontline journalists tended to be the most enthusiastic about cross-media opportunities, while editors in the middle part of the hierarchy were often the ones most resistant to change.

  Determine your training needs: The most successful operations have a mix of specialists who concentrate on one media form - whether that’s print, video or online - and generalists who are comfortable working with all those forms.

Ms. de Aquino said media executives are currently debating whether they can charge for their online content -- and she pointed out that online communities could offer just as much opportunity for revenue as online content.

"Customers are more willing to pay for expressing their opinions than for buying information," she observed.

She said it seems easier for smaller organizations to experiment with multimedia operations, while leading media companies "face many more obstacles to integration." But she said if a newspaper works through the obstacles, many advantages arise.

"The main disadvantage of convergence? None," she said. "No one pointed out any disadvantage to convergence."

Other journalists presented three case studies on convergence, during a panel moderated by Ari Valjakka, editor in chief of the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat:

  Nordjyske Siftstidende, Denmark: Editors-in-chief Flemming Hvidtfeldt and Lars Jespersen virtually banned the use of the word "convergence," focusing instead on using new methods in a media environment where the reader-users have more control over what news they consume. "We wanted better journalism, not a specific number of so-called ’converged’ stories," Mr. Hvidtfeldt said.

  Eesti Pevaleht and Eesti Ekspress, Estonia: Managing director Aavo Kokk said his daily newspaper, Eesti Pevaleht, scaled back its online focus to the basics of local news -- and scaled back its online staff from 13 to 2.5 positions. The weekly Eesti Ekspress, meanwhile, switched over to a Web-based editorial system. "This means that the online (version), in theory, is prepared before the printed newspaper. Everybody is working in this online environment," Mr. Kokk said.

  Financial Times, Britain: Publishing editor William Dawkins said working across multiple media platforms "now looks like a natural way to harness - or turbocharge, if you like - an old profession to a new technology." He said the newspaper was adopting a "media-neutral publishing system" called Methode, to publish on the Web as well as in print. FT can break a story on the Internet if the editors think their scoop may not hold up until the morning, or hold back an exclusive until it appears in the print edition.

The Internet has changed how newspapers do business, but the fundamentals must stay the same, Dawkins said.

"Success in online publishing depends on essential editorial values," he said.