Should new outlets continue to press toward digital innovations? Yes, but perhaps not without more though, according to Dr. Iris Chyi of the University of Texas at Austin and Monica Chada, a doctoral student at UT.

“The web is not a primary revenue driver,” Chyi said, speaking during the second Saturday panel of ISOJ. “Instead, the majority of revenue continues to come from print editions.”

Chyi and Chada examined seven new and/or mobile, measuring them for “newsfulness” — the likelihood of a multi-purpose device being used for news access.(Paper, PDF).

They found that desktops and laptops were the most “newsful”, followed by notebooks, and the iPhone. They also found that people used an average of 1.2 different devices weekly to access news. Only 1 in 10 accessed news from two or more devices.

The study also indicated that news consumers prefer older, more traditional platforms for news consumption.

So what does this mean moving forward?

“Media companies should exercise caution when adopting new technologies,” Chada said. “They should continue to consider multiple variables without alienating legacy media too quickly.”

ISOJ 2011: Hsiang Iris Chyi and Monica Chadha presentation, from Knight Center on Vimeo.