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Would expanding US copyright law to incorporate news articles help protect newspapers from unfair competition online? Several columnists and commentators have come out on both sides of the issue in the past week, raising questions on the role of online aggregators and the efficacy of any action regarding copyright.

First off, US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner proposed on his blog that copyright law should be changed to "bar access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing online content without the copyright holder's consent." Essentially, that would mean news aggregators like Google News would have to ask permission each time they linked to a newspaper article. Posner argues that traditional media lose so much revenue by these "free riders" reusing content it will eventually drive newspapers out of business.

Google News and YouTube are extending their collaborative applications in an attempt to attract more news outlets to use their services. The project will target the 25,000 plus news outlets which are already on Google New's source list, to encourage them to join the YouTube partner programme and become an official partner. The aim is to help news publishers generate a larger audience for their video content.  

The plans were announced Sunday on the Google News Blog by YouTube news manager Olivia Ma.

It is becoming increasingly clear that a proportion of general news content is going to be put behind some kind of a pay wall in upcoming months. Several publishers have expressed their intentions to start charging, and several third parties want to help them do it. Journalists don't seem to want it, it seems pretty unlikely that readers would want it, so how are publishers going to succeed? Can it restore value to good journalism which is increasingly becoming a commodity? The Editors Weblog takes a look at some of the different services on offer and strategies being considered.

Journalism Online

First, Journalism Online, a start-up founded in April by industry experts Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery, has taken facilitating charging for online content as one of its core goals. Brill made a presentation at the NAA-organised newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28 at which Journalism Online's mission was stated as enabling "news organizations to restore the optimal mix of circulation and advertising revenue necessary to finance original reporting and editing" hence giving them the chance to "realize the revenue they deserve--and can command--from readers and distributors for their digital content."

Journalism Online is marketing its proposal as an e-commerce platform. The idea is that it would make premium content from multiple publishers easily accessible to readers and allow annual, monthly subscriptions, day passes or single articles. There will also be all-you-can-read bundling options. Publishers will decide what content they want to charge for, how much to charge (though it is unclear how all-you-can-read prices will be decided) and how to charge. In the presentation, Brill suggests $50-60 a year and $5-6 a month for small to large city papers, but he stressed that this was an arbitrary choice and clearly the price would depend on how much content the publisher put behind the pay wall. He had previously suggested $15 a month for an all-you-can-read subscription.

The company maintains that implementing its system will not lead to a substantial loss in traffic or ad revenue, claiming that papers would be able to keep 88% of page views and 91% of ad revenue, as any paid content would be part of a hybrid model. In his examples, Brill demonstrates how he believes a paper could essentially double its income. Brill has also stressed that Journalism Online will incorporate lots of sampling. He told Nieman Lab's Zachery Seward that Journalism Online's assumptions are that 5-10% of current monthly unique visitors will be willing to pay for content; that 95 percent of those paying customers will choose subscriptions over micropayments; and that after subscribing, those readers will view 30-40 percent more pages than non-paying readers.

Overall, the company seems to be presenting its service as a chance for newspapers to focus on their best customers, offering a premium service to those who are prepared to pay. At the Chicago meeting, Journalism Online also emphasised the advantages of paid online content in terms of preserving the print product: it is "about the value proposition of print... about print subscriber acquisition and retention costs."

ViewPass

Another third party service was presented at the NAA-organised meeting in Chicago: ViewPass. It is the brainchild of Alan Mutter and Ridgely Evers, and could be implemented in 9 months at a cost of $6 million. The idea is that newspaper readers would be required to register once with ViewPass and it would then track their activity across participating websites.

Like Journalism Online, it would aim to offer readers the chance to purchase premium online content from multiple sources, with potential for subscriptions, micropayments and bundling. Essentially, the ways in which it differs is that ViewPass would be industry-owned, giving publishers the chance to (hopefully) share profits in the business itself, and it most crucially it would allow users to 'pay' for their content with their time or their information instead of with cash, because of their increased value to advertisers. In fact, ViewPass would focus on presenting readers that were attractive to advertisers for highly targeted ads. Mutter himself is not enthusiastic about charging for much online content, suggesting to Nieman Lab that it would only work for specialist content.

Circlabs

The creation of another start up was announced the day before the Chicago meeting: CircLabs, founded by Bill Densmore, Jeffrey Vander Clute, Martin Langeveld and Joe Bergeron. Its first product, code-named Circulate, aims to "offer a solution" to publishers who are experimenting with micropayments and subscriptions, suggesting that they should charge for content which is "both scarce in nature and of high utility to a segment of the audience." CircLabs is also focussed on developing opportunities for "high-value" advertising revenue, and plans to incorporate personalised news services. Further details are yet to appear.

Efforts of individual publishers

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has announced that all the company's newspapers would be charging within a year. It is looking at bundling content, according to chief digital officer Jonathan Miller, such as putting all the media conglomerate's New York-based content into one subscription package. One of the company's prime assets, the Wall Street Journal, is proof that paid premium content does work, although of a specifically financial nature. The paper is to expand its paid online options, with plans to introduce micropayments later this year along with a further level of premium subscriptions. Murdoch suggested that the company wants to "test" a pay model on some of its stronger properties first, and there has been speculation that the Sunday Times will be among these. The paid online content debate, although definitely present in the UK, has not been as strong as across the Atlantic, and it would be interesting to see what sort of reaction such a move would provoke.

MediaNews Group is planning to charge online under the belief that "we continue to do an injustice to our print subscribers and create perceptions that our content has no value by putting all of our print content online for free." A memo to staff from CEO Dean Singleton and president Jody Lodovic suggested that a part-paid strategy is in the works, and made it clear that the company is intending to charge for existing content rather than for new products or services.

The New York Times is apparently looking at two different ways in which it could charge for online content. The first would be somewhat similar to the Financial Times' model, whereby readers could surf the site without charge until a page-view or word limit were reached, when a 'metre' would start running and it would charge a user for the rest of their time spent. (The FT allows 10 free articles per user per month, then demands a subscription.) This would have the advantage of not putting specific content behind a paywall, and therefore not angering journalists.

The other option is a 'membership' scheme: readers would donate money and subsequently be invited into a "New York Times community," which would offer them free merchandise and other benefits. Possibly a tiered membership scheme could be implemented. When these proposals were discussed, Bill Keller told staff that a decision would be made by the end of June. The NYT is wary following its failed TimesSelect experience back in 2007 and seems determined to find a solution that will not damage its significant ad revenue.

Potential obstacles: search and antitrust

Currently many people find their news through search engines such as Google, and for articles to get good Google rankings and appear higher up in search results, they cannot be behind a paywall. Newspapers must strive to find an appropriate solution to this when they start charging: the Wall Street Journal's tactic of allowing its paid content to be accessed free via Google is clearly not fair to its paying customers, and is a definite deterrent to potential subscribers.

Antitrust regulations in the US effectively prevent publishers from coming to a joint agreement on when and how they should start charging for content. At the newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28, an antitrust lawyer was present to make sure all the discussion was legal. Poynter analyst Rick Edmonds suggested that the use of a third party "vendor" such as Journalism Online could be the solution to these concerns. Journalism Online has taken on David Boies and Ted Olson for antitrust advice.

So, is it going to work? And how?

Undoubtedly, implementing paid content is going to be a considerable challenge and is likely to involve substantial experimentation. Newspapers need to consider what exactly they would want to charge for, for example whether they could create a new paid service or put what is currently free behind a pay wall. It seems as if it would be easier to persuade people to pay for something new, rather than telling them they have to start paying for something previously free. But then people might decide that they are happy with what they get now and that they do not want to pay for anything extra. A paper with a highly developed website such as the New York Times could possibly offer basic news free but keep its interactive graphics and other more innovative content for its premium customers.

As yet, Journalism Online seems to be ahead of the pack with regards to third party services. No papers have publicly signed on but Brill told Seward that he had already spoken to about half of those at the Chicago meeting. In terms of connections and credibility of its founders, Journalism Online has a head start. ViewPass and CircLabs do seem to be onto something, however, with their focus on offering consumers as targets for higher-revenue advertising and effectively allowing them to pay for their news by looking at ads. Could these companies coexist, or is there only room for one?

A crucial factor which should not be underestimated in any attempt to charge online is ease of use for the consumer. People will be far more likely to part with their cash if doing so is simple and straightforward. For this reason, sign-in-once and all-you-can-read offers are likely to appeal. And once people are paying, the level of service should reflect this: good journalism presented attractively and accessibly. An element of personalisation would also seem worth paying for.

Can paid online content 'save' newspapers? If Journalism Online's figures are correct, it looks like it could make a significant difference to a newspaper's fortunes. The next few months will be telling in terms of experimentation and competition between proposals, but it will take some years for the definitive answer to this question to be realised.

The American Press Institute prepared a report for last week's newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago in which it assessed the options for paid content and "fair use" fees from Google and other aggregators. Entitled Newspaper Economic Action Plan, the report concluded that newspapers "can make the leap from an advertising-centered to an audience-centered enterprise," and should do so as soon as possible.

The "integrated, five-point" plan provides "models and recommendations for the migration of online content from free to paid" which are "intended for the development of consensus, protocols and technology." The API does not see paid content as the only revenue source that will save journalism, but advocates establishing "a true value for news content online by charging for it" in the first part of its plan: the True Value Doctrine. It recommends that news organisations immediately start a "massive" period of experimentation to find the best way to do this. The report explores three options: micropayments, subscriptions and a hybrid model.

Speaking at the Google I/O Developer Conference that took place in San Francisco between May 27-28, Google has unveiled Google Wave, a new online communication service.

Described as a "personal communication and collaboration tool," Google Wave allows users to chat and share documents including audio files, videos and photos in real-time.

Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt has told the Financial Times that the company had considered buying a newspaper or supporting news businesses seeking non-profit status but that it is now unlikely to pursue either option. Speculation that Google might consider such a purchase has been rife for some time, and a feeling has emerged among some publishers that Google has a sense of duty towards newspapers, as its Google News product is entirely dependent on newspaper content.

Schmidt explained to the FT, however, that having looked into the possibility, the search engine was "trying to avoid crossing the line" between technology and content: "we have done well by letting content people do content in their own terms and in their own way." Google has concluded that any potential acquisition targets were too expensive or carried excessive liabilities.

The European Newspaper Publishers' Association has issued a statement in which it outlines its concerns regarding the expansion of news aggregators' activities in the field of online news using newspapers' content. The association is particularly concerned by the introduction of advertising on Google News. ENPA represents over 5,200 European newspapers.

The ENPA states is belief that "respect for copyright legislation by Google and others based on right holders' prior consent (opt-in) is essential to ensure a proper basis for discussions and partnerships between news aggregators and newspaper publishers" and calls attention to ACAP, a World Association of Newspapers-backed solution that gives publishers more control over their online content. 

Sharon Waxman of TheWrap managed to get some interesting information out of Google CEO Eric Schmidt at a party at Arianna Huffington's mansion on Friday. He told her definitively that Google has no plans to start creating original content, and described Google's vision for news search in the near future.

Schmidt explained to Waxman that Google has plans for a 'solution' to help save newspapers who are struggling from reduced revenue. In about six months, he said, the company will "roll out a system that will bring high-quality news content to users without them actively looking for it," reported Waxman. When they go to Google's site, users will be automatically served the news that interests them as established by the company's latest algorithms. These apply more sophisticated filtering, based on search words, user choices, purchases and others to determine 'what the reader is looking for without knowing they're looking for it."

Silicon Valley start-up Attributor and a group of online publishers have partnered to form the Fair Syndication Consortium which aims to help publishers receive a cut of the advertising revenue generated on sites which have reproduced their content. Companies such as Google or Yahoo operate advertising networks that broker advertising to websites, and the group hopes to persuade these and other players to give them a share of the ad revenue.

Attributor Corp currently works with companies such as the AP and the Financial Times to track their text, audio and video content. If it is found that someone is using it inappropriately, the news outlet can request that it is taken down. Now, however, Attributor intends to use its technology to keep the content up, but with a share of ad revenue going to the publisher. "What we are saying is maybe there is a middle ground," said Attributor's chief executive Jim Pitkow. "If people are taking full copies of your content - why don't you take a revenue share?" Attributor would go direct to the offending company and demand a cut of the revenue.

Today media executives Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery, Jr. announced the foundation of their new company Journalism Online, LLC, which proposes to "quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce." The company will work with all types of publishers--newspaper, magazine, online-only--to help make money with online news.

As print publications continue to fail and publishers seek to make a profit online, they battle a myriad of obstacles with the online forum: Will users be willing to pay for content that has thus-far been provided for free? How will publishers compete with free news aggregators like Google and the world of the blogosphere and citizen journalism? Once they charge for content, how will they maintain searchability and generate the traffic they will need to attract advertisers?

Amidst increasing criticism of Google and other aggregators throughout the industry, Steve Outing has some unusual advice to offer to news producers: if you can't beat them, join them. Instead of fighting Google, "think through how you can help Google make more money."

He suggests that the news industry joins forces to approach Google with a plan that would allow the search engine to "fully turn on' advertising on Google News, and share the revenue with the content providers. Outing believes that this could financially support "the entire community of news providers," who would be paid according to the number of clicks through to their content. 

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's speech at the annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America has been widely anticipated throughout the industry, as criticism of Google from newspaper publishers grows. The New York Times said the meeting "had the makings of a high-tension face-off" and more than one article described Schmidt's descent "into the lion's den;" a "battle of two Goliaths," according to FTM's Philip M. Stone. But in the end, the occasion seems to have been anticlimactic, with Schmidt giving a lengthy, uncontroversial speech followed by restrained questions.

However despite disappointment at the lack of a "face-off," what Schmidt said is worth noting, particularly his focus on future partnership opportunities. He praised the newspaper's importance in public life, and described how impressed he was that newspapers had started off strongly on the Internet, by introducing features such as blogs and reader comments. However, he continued, this innovation had tailed off, and newspapers need to act quickly to restore this if it is to get out of the trouble in which it finds itself now.

American Journalism Review's Paul Farhi questioned whether the Associated Press' decision to sell its news content to online portals may have had a damaging effect on the daily newspapers that actually own the wire service. Back in the 1990s, millions of subscribers to AOL or other early portals and hubs of the web such as CompuServe would get their daily news from AP's packages. And now, the wire service is the primary news provider for online giants such as Yahoo or MSN, and is used by Google. Hundreds of sites, asserts Farhi, are "in the news business because of the Associated Press."

So this essentially means that the AP, a non-profit news cooperative owned by US newspapers, has been enabling these sites to compete for traffic and ad revenue with the very newspapers that own it. Or as Farhi puts it "for years, newspapers have effectively been handing their online competitors one of their chief weapons in the fight for the news audience, the AP wire."

In a Poynter article, contributor Amy Gahran examines the possibilities of Google Earth as an online news tool. The New York Times and National Geographic have already employed Google Earth to provide geographically based news, allowing the user to see the latest news and features of a region by clicking the area on the map, and Google News took it a step further with its Google News layers, which organizes its aggregated stories from over 4,500 news sources onto Google Earth.

Google Earth has hundreds of applications, including a Google Earth street view that allows the user to zoom in and create a panorama of a particular area. "What if a news organization offered this kind of experience and related it to a news story or ongoing topic?" asks Gahran. She suggests that news sites could employ the street view as an interesting visual feature to show the effects of disasters or community projects, provide insight into the local environment, or show changes by overlaying current imagery with past imagery.

The latest data released on smartphones has put Apple's iPhone at the top spot with an impressive 50% of web share - its closest rival, RIM's Blackberry 8300 model, trailing behind with just 9.1%.

The iPhone's web share in the US equates to a staggering 40% increase in the period between August 2008 and February 2009, with the following three manufacturers in the list each having lost more than 10% in this time frame. Just three months since its launch, the Google Android is also doing well with 5% of web traffic.

A commonly used word at the 2009 Guardian Changing Media Summit was "partnerships", according to Guardian.co.uk. If news organizations are going to survive, they need to work together. Both BBC and Google heads spoke about their roles in bringing the media community together.

Google News announced that it has struck a deal with eight European news agencies to host their content and to display advertisements around their stories. The ads will also run alongside content from the agencies whose content Google already hosts: AP, the AFP, the UK Press Association and Canada Press. Google started to display ads next to search results on Google News US in late February, but it was unclear if the move would spread to outside the US. The ads will be contextually relevant, as they are on Google news US.

News agencies EFE, which services Spain and Latin America, LUSA (Portugal and Brazil), Keystone (Switzerland), APA (Austria), PAP (Poland), MTI (Hungary), ANA (Greece) and Belga (Belgium) have all struck news content hosting deals with Google. They are all members of the European Press agency.

This week Metaprinter reporter Robert Ivan interviews Mark Briggs, CEO of Serra Media, to learn more about the company's product, Newsgarden. Founded by Glenn Thomas, Samuel Wan and Briggs, Serra Media is a Seattle-based web technology company that develops interactive projects for news sites and creates software for media companies.

Last November the company launched Newsgarden, "a map-based web application that filters the location of recent news items, blog posts and other information available on the web down to the neighborhood level." News sites purchase the application, which displays a Google map with plotted points, to allow readers access to geographically targeted content--stories, photos, links, video--from both the news staff and also other readers.

Thomson Reuters plans to "roll out a major social media coverage package "to enhance its coverage of the World Economic Forum which begins tomorrow in Davos, Switzerland.  Reporters will use Twitter and YouTube to share video and updates from the Forum. 

According to Mark Jones, global community editor at Thomson Reuters, "We want to turn the coverage around, by asking delegates what they think the biggest issues facing the global economy are, then use social media to let the public offer their opinion."

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. This week, we looked Global Post and Huffington Post, two news websites that are challenging the traditional newspaper business model. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about ONLINE-ONLY NEWS PUBLICATIONS.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
A Nigerian site equivalent to the Huffington Post named Saharareporters.com is a competitor of Punch, but we don't consider it a threat. However, the site has helped to keep us on our toes. We believe that print will remain an indispensable medium for the validation of meaning among readers. We have nearly 36 years of credibility which must count for something. My colleagues in the newsroom agree that competition from online can only make us stronger and is unlikely to supplant our relevance as long as we're listening to the readers.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
By now, newspaper people should always have in their head that they and their newspapers are competing with every kind of consumer distraction, from YouTube to Twitter.

That's why we have to work harder and harder to promote the newspaper to the public and advertisers, especially the basic idea behind the newspaper; to be THE place for news (local, political, national, general, etc., depending on the strategy of your paper), and be far better than your competitor. This is not a new story; it is the same concern of our ancestors 150 years ago.

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
Online-only news sites are not a threat to traditional news gatherers. These project are only threats for media companies that do not understand changing media landscape, that do not understand that publishing on only one channel, one platform media (only print, only TV...) is not a future. One platform media will be able to survive only if they are strictly targeted and focused at a very clear (and I would guess a very limited) audience. In the case of my former publishing house, we are partially in competition with these sites because we run a fully-integrated and clearly targeted multimedia system. .

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
Several of the stand alone online news sites are really good, they are often better than us to utilize the possibilities of internet, and they force us to improve our own products. Nonetheless, I believe these are not our most important competitors.

The key now is to understand that the technological development gives traditional media a competition from a range of players we don't necessarily define as "media". There are three factors demanding that we analyze the competition with fresh eyes:

THE USER'S TIME: The time spent on popular sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Nettby.no and so on is dramatically longer than on news sites. This trend is reinforced by new mobile platforms like iPhone. Look around you: On the metro, in the cafeteria, at the breakfast table -in all the situations where people traditionally have been enjoying a newspaper, more and more people are now staring into some sort of screen. This represents a dramatic competitive shift because these services steal time from that which used to be allocated to newspapers and news sites.

NICHE SITES and SOCIAL NETWORK: Within any thinkable niche there exist special interest sites and services with more depth, higher quality and that are perceived as more effective than newspapers and news sites. Although many of these are not in the news business in a traditional sense, they are still our competitors because they so strongly affect the way in which we gather information in our daily life.

ADVERTISING: We are in direct competition with Google when it comes to the big advertising money. In addition, we see that the classified ads, that have been a great source of income for many, are now moving to sites not attached to traditional media houses in any way. In my mind, the most important question for 2009 is this: What will fund the journalism in the future?

Altogether, these three factors represent competitive challenges that must have consequences for all parts of our operation. Rather than pointing out the stand alone news sites as our new competitors, we need to search deeper and ask ourselves: "With this new media reality - what should we be in the future?"

NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
We don't see these sorts of sites as a threat per se to traditional news gathering. But we do see them as competitive. They are in the business of aggregating niche audiences around a public debate of the issues of the day. Anyone who aggregates audience obviously is a competitor, but can be seen as a partner, too.

First off, our unique proposition lies In our ability to generate the news,  often news that would not exist without our journalistic efforts, that feeds the fires of public debate. Of course, newspaper companies have long been in the commentary and opinion part of the business, too, and need to remain so.

But unlike with print, where the barriers to entry are so high, we have no option to live with many more alternatives in the digital world. So we have to consider whether we are primarily distributors or creators, along with our audiences (or communities) of content.
While I suspect we will continue to distribute through our own channels, I see no reason why we won't seek to maximize our reach by aligning our branded content through other distribution channels, such as Politico. Communities are being formed all over the place. We need to get out of the old mindset that they will come to us and go out, introduce ourselves and overwhelm them with the quality of our insights in their areas of interest.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
Local information is what we are about. No one can compete with us for information in Southwest Florida. We must keep that in mind as we do our online work and plan our online and print newspapers. How can we make that national story local? How do we bring a national story home to our readers. On Jan. 20, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. The world and national press will be all over that story. But, we will be on a bus traveling from Fort Myers, FL filled with people going to see this historic day. We will be on this bus, we will be doing live video on this bus. In other words, we won't be spending our time just rewriting the main story that we will receive from dozens of other places. We will spend our time reporting on this historic event through the eyes of local people.

As newspapers struggle to sell their content, which in most cases can be found online for free, David Carr of The New York Times asks why the news industry as not followed Apple's model for iTunes.  

The iTunes online music store sold more than 2.4 billion tracks last year, according to the NYT.  The most important thing to retain from this number, according to Carr, is that "Apple has been able to charge for content in the first place," even though music can be downloaded for free online (illegally, of course).

The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun announced in December that they will begin sharing content including stories, photos and news.

The exchange is in order to cut costs and "benefit from each others expertise."  For example, The Washington Post will use the Sun's regional coverage and the Sun will "tap the Post's federal government coverage."

Consulting firm Deloitte has released a report showing that the 14-25 demographic watches a considerable amount less television than its older peers. Whereas Generation X (26-42) watches 19.2 hours of TV per week, the Millennial generation average a mere 10.5 hours in front of the boob tube. Still, this generation consumes the most media of any other demographic. Surprising figures? Not really.

With all of the interactive options Millennials have (video games, social media, mobile phones, MP3 players, etc.), sitting in front of a screen controlled by traditional "gatekeepers" seems less appealing. Getting their fingers dirty on newsprint that doesn't give the chance to talk back, even more so. Obviously, the trend of already declining newspaper circulations will only perpetuate as Millennials grow older and their grandparents pass-on.

But all is not negative for traditional media, whose audiences have never been bigger thanks to their Internet presence. The Bivings Group recently released a report indiciating that the large majority of newspapers are "getting it" on the Web, integrating social media and RSS, eliminating registration pages and opening their articles to reader comments.

An even brighter light shines on these promising developments when considering Internet ad spend. UK based-bank Barclay's released its US ad forecasts this week, expecting a 6.1% increase in Internet advertising. Although this rate is a huge drop from the 20-30% increases Internet advertising has been experiencing for several years, the global economic crisis combined with the fact that TV and newspaper advertising will drop 10% and 17% respectively means Internet-based companies can remain optimistic that ad revenues will continue to fill their coffers.

Of course, even increasing Internet revenues are not coming close to making up for lost ad revenues of media companies through traditional outlets. Content production and journalism in general are suffering because of massive staff layoffs. And perhaps to make things worse, Barclay's predicts that the bulk of Internet ad jump in 2009 will go to search, up 20%, compared with a 4% rise in display advertising. Some traditional media companies may not like it, but they're going to have to share more revenues with Google and the like. Still, that's not all bad. As they leave the paper on the doorstep and the TV off, most Millennials only find traditional media through Google to begin with, which may mean search engines are the only way traditional media houses will remain relevant. 

Sources: Reuters through European Journalism Centre, Seeking Alpha, Read Write Web  

In April the washingtonpost.com partnered with multimedia technology firm, Apture to allow readers to view links with a pop up rather than leaving the page.  The new technology has now been applied to the washingtonpost.com political data, congressional records, video, news and abstracts.

According to Editor & Publisher, Apture's "Media Hub is a Web-editing interface that sources, captures and delivers relevant resources in any format -- video, audio, map, documents, photos, reference guides -- that producers want to share."  Media hub allows "editors to easily include rich media content of their choice from more than 25 sources, including YouTube videos, Wikipedia content, Google Maps, or in-house archives, to add richness and depth to stories."

Google is upping the browser war against Microsoft in considering pre-installing its Chrome browser on personal computers.

Chrome, launched in September, is direct competition for Microsoft's Internet Explorer in a "battle to dominate how users access and interact with the web," The Times is reporting.