Several digital libraries have extensive directories of the press on the Web, for example News, Media and Periodicals, maintained by the Michigan Electronic Library (MEL).
"More than 3,600 newspapers now publish on the Internet, but there are signs that the tide of growth may ebb", Eric K. Meyer stated when analyzing the presence of the newspapers on the Web in an article of AJR/NewsLink:
"A full 43% of all on-line newspapers now [end of 1997] are based outside the
United States. A year ago, only 29% of on-line newspapers were located abroad.
Rapid growth, primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Brazil and
Germany, has pushed the total number of non-U.S. on-line newspapers to 1,563.
The number of U.S. newspapers on-line also has grown markedly, from 745 a year
ago to 1,290 six months ago to 2,059 today.
Outside the United States, the United Kingdom, with 294 on-line newspapers, and Canada, with 230, lead the way. In Canada, every province or territory now has at least one on-line newspaper. Ontario leads the way with 91, Alberta has 44, and British Columbia has 43.
Elsewhere in North America, Mexico has 51 on-line newspapers, 23 newspapers are on-line in Central America and 36 are on-line in the Caribbean. Europe is the next most wired continent for newspapers, with 728 on-line newspaper sites. After the United Kingdom, Norway has the next most - 53 - and Germany has 43. Asia (led by India) has 223 on-line newspapers, South America (led by Bolivia) has 161 and Africa (led by South Africa) has 53. Australia and other islands have 64 on-line newspapers."
The Web is the site of a collaborative effort between several companies in newspaper publishing. Opened between February 1997 and March 1998, NewsWorks was the common site of America's newspapers on-line maintained by New Century Network, a grouping of nine of the largest companies in newspaper publishing (Advance Publications; Cox Newspapers; The Gannett Company; The Hearst Corporation; Knight-Ridder Inc.; The New York Times Company; Times Mirror; The Tribune Company; The Washington Post Company), representing 140 titles. It was closed on March 10, 1998, because of dissension and a lack of cohesion between the partners. Even if this first partnership failed, the Web will probably foster some multinational and multilingual information services, and this will deeply change the habits brought by long-term traditional competition.
The electronic press is listed for example in E.Journal and the E-Zine-List.
E.Journal is the WWW Virtual Library electronic journals list. Provided by E-DOC (Electronic Publishing Solutions), it is the database of electronic journals, with the following categories: academic and reviewed journals; college or university; e-mail newsletters; magazines, newspapers; political; print magazines; publishing topics; business/finance; and other resources.
Updated monthly, the E-Zine-List is John Labovitz's list of electronic 'zines around the world, accessible via the Web, FTP, gopher, e-mail, and other services. 3,045 zines were listed on November 29, 1998. On the website, John Labovitz explains:
"What's an 'e-zine', anyway? For those of you not acquainted with the zine world, 'zine' is short for either 'fanzine' or 'magazine', depending on your point of view. Zines are generally produced by one person or a small group of people, done often for fun or personal reasons, and tend to be irreverent, bizarre, and/or esoteric. Zines are not 'mainstream' publications - they generally do not contain advertisements (except, sometimes, advertisements for other zines), are not targeted towards a mass audience, and are generally not produced to make a profit. An 'e-zine' is a zine that is distributed partially or solely on electronic networks like the Internet. […]