Not surprisingly, a legendary magazine many of us grew up flipping through while waiting on line at supermarkets for the few decades. Newsweek as chosen to kill its print version and abandon all to the digital venue.

Says Editor-in-Chief of the Newsweek Daily Beast Company “We are announcing this morning an important development at Newsweek and The daily beast. Newsweek will transition to an all-digital format in early 2013. As part of this transition, the last print edition in the [US] will be our December 31 issue. Meanwhile, Newsweek will expand its rapidly growing tablet and online presence, and well as its successful global partnerships and events businesses.”

Many predicted this move was right around the corner back in 2000 when the iconic magazine coupled with an online news startup called The Daily Beast. And of course, Newsweek is one in a long line of legendary print publications that are surrendering their physical identities to an exclusive cyberself. BusinessWeek, for instance was sold by McGraw-Hill to Bloomberg a few years ago, and PC Magazine is now PCMag.

What Will the Ramifications Be?

To start, people will lose their jobs. Brown herself stated, “Regrettable we anticipate staff reductions and the streamlining of our editorial and business operations both here in the US and internationally.”

Furthermore, advertising profit will decrease since online rates pale in comparison to print rates – and of course the quality of the magazine and news coverage is at risk of weakening since online content is regarded with less editing and managing.

But on a glossier note, the company will be relieved of its costly printing and distribution costs, will no longer have to face craze deadlines for having stories ready for publication in the following week’s editions – and online ad spend will probably increase substantially.

About the Magazines

The Daily Beast currently welcomes about 15 million readers on a monthly basis which represents an increase of 70%over the past two years. And because of the tablet, the online mag’s projection is that US users could surpass 70 million by the end of this year alone.

Not to get you all teary-eyed, but Newsweek’s first issue came out in February 1933 and will be celebrating its 80^th birthday in 2013.

For a look at some of the best Newsweek covers since the magazines inception, click here and take a look at a collection, courtesy of Buzzfeed.