Marc Andreessen is at it again. First, he said that software is eating the world. Then, he told us the bitcoin digital currency will remake global finance. And now, the venture capitalist and founding father of the web browser says we're on the verge of a major boom in the business of journalism, an internet-powered resurgence that will see the industry grow more than tenfold.

Andressen isn't the first investor to bet big on a new wave of original online content – either in this internet revolution or the last one – and few bets have actually panned out. But there's hard evidence that the boom he forecasts is already underway.

For years, the internet undercut newspapers and other traditional news outlets. Tools like Blogger and YouTube and social networks like Twitter and Facebook turned everyone into news producers, and this glut of content devalued the sort of polished news traditionally created by professionals, driving old school journalism towards irrelevance. But Andreessen argues that this very phenomenon has now created a huge opportunity for the news business to reinvent itself.

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The very platforms that killed newspapers, he says, have amped up news consumption, creating more news readers (compared with broadcast systems used 30 years ago) and intensifying the habits of existing news consumers. Andreessen believes that the quantity of news consumed is now growing even faster than the quantity of news produced – that demand now far exceeds supply. This implies there's tons of new money to be made in the news business and that profits are only going to grow. "The big opportunity for the news industry in the next five to 10 years," Andreessen writes, "is to increase its market size 100x AND drop prices 10X – become larger and much more important in the process."

If such a monumental shift were happening, if the market for news were really going to grow 100x due to social networks and internet disruption, you'd expect to see some signs of that by now. And indeed there are at least some:

The Smart Money Arrives ———————–

In the days of monopoly newspapers, cloistered wealthy families tended to control media properties. But the list of names throwing money at the news business reads like a who's who of the internet. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar pledged $250 million to a news startup led by surveillance journalist Glenn Greenwald. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes bought The New Republic. And, yes, Andreessen has seeded three different news startups. He even employs my former editor, so that he can produce news on his firm's own site (consider that a disclosure).

To be sure, some of these investments might be chasing influence rather than profits, and some will surely end in folly. But the trend is real. Even Marissa Mayer – who, as a top Google executive, famously leaned heavily on data to drive her decision-making – is now throwing money at name journalists like Katie Couric and David Pogue from her new perch atop Yahoo.

The Catalogs ————

Other operations are discovering entirely new ways of making money from news. Andreessen is high on a site called Wirecutter, run by gadget blogger Brian Lam. The Wirecutter is funded not primarily by advertising but by affiliate fees it generates by sending electronics buyers to other sites. The site is as much a smartly curated catalog as a work of journalism. Ditto with Ben Lerer's Thrillist, an internet empire built on making, stocking, and selling its own menswear as well as on smart writing and distribution. It's news as salesmanship. Thrillist's revenue recently crossed $80 million.

Ads Actually Work —————–

Still others are using premium display advertising. For all the pessimism around the ads that accompanies online journalism – even the optimistic Andreessen railed against "crappy teeth whitening come-ons" – there are plenty of brands making it work with top-shelf ads. Andreessen mentions The Atlantic, where digital ad revenues surpassed print in 2011, and WIRED, which crossed the rubicon in 2012. Gawker Media (where I used to work and am a tiny shareholder) is also profitable. CNET was already profitable when it was acquired in 2008. And the Huffington Post was profitable right before it was acquired by AOL.

Om Malik, venture investor and founder of the tech news site GigaOm, believes the advertising gravy train is only just getting started. "The business of news is still in the dark ages... mired in the systems of the past," Malik tells WIRED. "The intellectual makeover of Madison Avenue hasn’t even started yet."

Instagram as a News Engine ————————–

Of course, as a venture capitalist, Andreessen is in the business of saying big booms are on the way. And he can do just fine for himself even if most of his bets never pan out. His wild optimism about the future is news echoes the "content is king" delusions that infected the last tech boom, and in recent months, we've seen plenty of news failures. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong bet the farm on original content, and the company is struggling. Demand Media is faltering too. And Andreessen is applauding startups that are still in the red (like Business Insider).

Plus, it's hard to tell whether people want professionally reported news over news from their friends. Malik points out that the explosive popularity of apps like Snapchat indicates just the opposite. "Instagrams, Secrets, Whispers, and Snapchats are in direct competition with the Times," he says. "Daily attention is being sliced and diced multiple ways."

But apps aren't just a means of personal communication. They're also a way of distributing professional news. And all the money flowing into the news business right now means they'll be delivering a surge in quality journalism. Enjoy it while it lasts.