planned to distribute copies for free and fund the printing with local ads. It initially launched in Chicago and San Francisco with plans to roll the venture out to more major cities across the US.
The company had signed up hundreds of bloggers who were to receive a share of advertising revenues.
The Printed Blog made it to 16 issues and printed 80,000 copies with another 100,000 or so copies downloaded.
Founder Joshua Karp announced the start-up venture had folded on his blog: "It is with great sadness that I must report that, due to a lack of outside investment capital, The Printed Blog is ceasing publication.
"Despite a significant personal investment on my part, and the additional support of six or seven credit cards, we were unable to raise the minimum amount of money required to reach the next stage of our development.
"This was a difficult decision for us, but the financial reality of the situation demanded that we suspend further publication immediately, and indefinitely.
"Last year, I had an idea. I wondered what would happen if some of the business model principles that work online were applied to the troubled newspaper industry.
"The more I thought about it, the more the curiosity got to me.
"So I registered a domain name, developed an action plan, and started the process of building a new kind of newsprint publication.
"Everyone said I was nuts, but I did it anyway."
Read more on Brand Republic: