Like many of their bigger counterparts, these smaller papers generally are not making profits yet from their on-line ventures.

He said the company was prepared with an alternative plan to open warehouses in Tennessee and the Reno area to exclusively serve its on-line venture, Barnesandnoble.com.

In fact, 62 percent of E-commerce sales are accounted for by bricks-and-mortar and catalog companies that also have begun on-line ventures.

Ms. Tereshko has begun branching out in her on-line ventures.

For C/net's on-line venture, the challenge is to sustain its popularity.

The specific look and feel of Bertelsmann's on-line venture is still evolving.

From there, he started several on-line ventures for Disney, including Disney.com.

Barnes & Noble also announced that its loss for the second quarter tripled, primarily because of a $23 million loss by the on-line venture.

And Ms. Wittenberg is looking into similar on-line ventures in other fields.

There is a window of opportunity for new people coming into the news business to get hired in on-line ventures.