Guardian.co.uk is the latest in a series of news publications to reveal that it will launch an iPhone application in the near future, and paidContent reports that they will probably charge for it.

The move comes just after both CNN and The Spectator annouced their paid-for iPhone applications. Whilst specific details have not yet been made public, including those of a suspected release date, Guardian News & Media have confirmed that an application is "in the pipeline".

Emily Bell, digital director for GNM, told Mediaguardian that getting applications into the app store is an "unpredictable business", quite reasonably making a launch date difficult to give. The Spectator's paid-for iPhone app took three months to get clearance from Apple.

However, despite plans to charge for the mobile application, Bell insists that the main Guardian.co.uk website will remain free.

Source: Guardian

Democratic state Rep. Marlin Schneider, a 39-year Wisconsin state lawmaker, has announced a plan to make any building associated with a news publication exempt from property taxes, the Chicago Tribune is reporting.

The plan was announced by Schneider on Tuesday, following the appearance of John Sturm, of the Newspaper Association of America, at a Congress hearing into the 'Furture of Newspapers,' earlier this month. Whilst Sturm rejected the idea of a government bailout, he did suggest that some 'targeted tax breaks' could be helpful.

In response to major staff cutbacks, mergers and multiple bankruptcies of news publications, Schneider has said he aims to preserve newspapers- noting that in Wisconsin alone, two newspapers in Milwaukee have merged into one, the daily afternoon newspaper in Madison now publishes only twice weekly, and other papers in smaller communities across the state have shrunk both in size and staff.

Until now only printing presses have been exempt from the tax and Schneider fears that "this bill may be too little, too late for many papers".

Billowing blue smoke from The Sun Headquarters' chimney yesterday, marked the end of newspaper's support for Gordon Brown and Labour party, in favour of opposition David Cameron and the Conservative party. With current circulation at approximately three million a day and a readership of double that, The Sun has long been Britain's top-selling selling daily newspaper - and prides itself on being politically influential. Today's headline; "Labour's Lost It" was the death knell from a publication which has been reigning in its support for a party over recent months, which it describes as "having lost its way."

It appears that more and more journalists are warming up to the idea of writing for non-profit publications, as Emily Bradshaw, Matt Stiles and Elise Hu, three award-winning journalists, quit their full time jobs to take up positions with the Texas Tribune.

The Texas Tribune, 'a non-profit nonpartisan public media organization', is expected to officially launch on November 3 this year, having raised enough funds ($3.5m and counting) to sustain itself for the next three years.

In a phone interview with Mallary Jean Tenore for Poynter Online, Bradshaw, Stiles and Hu explained their reasoning in leaving their previous publications.

"I feel, and still feel, that the newspaper business is in serious crisis. I'm not content to cling to a deck chair and go down with a sinking ship," said Ramshaw, 28, who worked for The Dallas Morning News for six years, the last three of which she was state investigative reporter. "We're trying to prepare for the next incarnation of journalism. If this venture is going to work, it's going to work because serious, talented journalists were brave enough to take the risk."

Speaking at the World Young Reader Conference in Prague on Tuesday, Jeanne-Emmanuelle Hutin, a member of the Directors Committee at Ouest France and Co-chair of the French Presidential Youth-Press Commission, spoke of the merits of free disribution of newspapers to youths aged 18-24.

Back in January, President Sarkozy announced that the government would be offering all 18 year olds a free daily newspaper of their choice, as part of scheme to help the floundering press industry and encourage youths to read the newspaper. While critics have spoken against the plan as superficial and demagogic, 41 different French newspapers have been experimenting and implementing similar concepts since 2006, Ms Hutin's Ouest France included.

In a video interview with Beet.tv, Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau commented on the hiring of Greg Coleman as president and chief revenue officer, who started at the news site yesterday.

With strong growth this year to around 24 million unique monthly visitors, "we firmly believe that we have the opportunity to build the brand that defines news and opinion on digital platforms" claims Hippeau. "This is a very large opportunity from a business point of view, so we are putting business infrastructure in place to allow us to be as big revenue-wise as we are traffic-wise."

Although traffic at Huffington is at an all-time high, greater than during the U.S. Presidential campaign, the site has not been regularly profitable and Hippeau announced earlier this week at the OMMA Conference that revenue from CPM advertising are nearing nil. Presumably the hiring of Coleman is to help HuffPost with just that, as he is an industry expert having headed global sales at Yahoo for seven years, which saw strong ad growth under his direction.

The Associated Press yesterday announced that the 2009 AP Stylebook would be available as an application for iPhone and iPod touch.

The AP Stylebook app, which helps journalists with a range of queries from grammar, punctuation and spelling, to briefings on media law, snippets of information on various topics and specific sport and business terminology- is now available via the App Store.

"AP Stylebook fans have been asking for a mobile application so they can have style guidance wherever they go," said Colleen Newvine, who manages the AP Stylebook product group. "Journalists never know when they will need to run out the door to chase a story, so as long as they have an iPhone in their pockets when they go, the Stylebook can go with them."

The 2009 AP Stylebook app costs $28.99 and annual releases for the application are set to coincide with the release dates for the Stylebook print edition.

Source : Associated Press

News Corp has decided to stay the course with Murdoch's plan to charge for online news despite the recent paidContent:UK/Harris Interactive poll that found only 5% of people would pay if their favorite online news source started charging. News Corp cites their own research claiming to have found support for paid digital content.

A memo from Richard Freudenstein, CEO of News Digital Media (the online arm of News Corp's Australian subsidiary News Limited), leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the 'second phase' of development for online content in Australia was under way, and that the corporation is confident of their plans. "News has conducted some audience research here in Australia and in the UK and US, which gives us confidence that, if we get the product and delivery system right, people will happily pay for news content online, on their computer, mobile, e-reader or other device," claims Freudenstein, careful to add the nuances of proper delivery and product.

A study by The Nielsen Company revealed last week that the time spent on social network and blogging sites accounted for 17% of total time spent on the Internet in August 2009. This figure is three times what people were spending on such sites a year ago.

"This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used," said Jon Gibs, vice president of media and agency insights, in the online division. The rate at which people are uploading photos, updating statuses, and sharing links reveals the "desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share" and "is increasingly driving the medium's growth," says Gibs.

Whilst the study was aimed at advertisers- publishers could also find the results useful. In the same way that advertisers use sites such as Facebook to gather information on consumers, decide where to spend their advertising dollars, and "engage in an ongoing dialogue with their target market," publishers can find out what stories are generating interest and what people want to hear more on; see what links people are sharing and even find sources. The fact that Nielsen's study shows that people are spending a good proportion of their time on social networking websites also confirms that the exposure linked articles receive on these websites is substantial.

The New York Times and its largest union, the Newspaper Guild, have agreed on voluntary buyouts according to a Guild memo. Details are unavailable as negotiations are at a early phase, but both labor and management are cooperating and actively searching for additional cost-cutting measures.

Times Senior Vice President of Operations and Labor Terry Hayes said the company would agree to offer a voluntary buyout proposed by New York Guild President Bill O'Meara during continuing negotiations, arranged when Guild members accepted voluntary 5% temporary pay reduction last spring. Hayes added that The Times agreed with a buyout "because the Guild and its members 'stepped up' to help the newspaper" by agreeing to the temporary pay reduction, scheduled to end on January 1st, 2010.

However, both Hayes and O'Meara agreed that further negotiations would be needed to settle the parameters and details of the buyout, and to discuss the other cost saving ideas brought up by the Guild committee members. These included reducing the amount of paper used in the NYT building and introducing more flexible compensatory time.

Social networking site, Twitter, is on the verge of receiving a cash injection of $100 million, reports The Guardian.

The San Francisco-based start-up, which allows people to post short 140-character messages via the Internet or SMS, is expected to secure the funding from Insight, a New York venture capital firm, and mutual fund, T. Rowe Price.

The surprise income is expected to see the company's value jump to $1bn, four times what it is currently worth, despite the fact that it does not presently generate any profits.

Earlier this month Biz Stone, Twitter's co-founder, had hinted that the company would be looking into running advertisements on the site to help create revenue. "We leave the door open for advertising. We'd like to keep our options open, as we've said before," he told Reuters.

Not eager to sell out early, however, Twitter executives have stressed their intention to hold off on cashing in and focusing on the 'important work at hand: to create a compelling service and great user experience for millions of people around the world.'