Sweden’s Post och Inrikes Tidningar, known as the worlds oldest newspaper has ended publication of its print edition and will be available only online. The paper has become more of a government bulletin and has not reported news stories for over a hundred years.

Blogs have given the nations top 10 newspaper sites a much-needed increase in traffic. Over the past year Web traffic to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210 percent. Over all the unique audience growth has increased by 9 percent in the past year. Unique visitors to blog pages accounted for 13 percent of Web traffic in December 2006. That’s up 9 percentage points from 4 percent in December 2005.

Although certain Belgian news associations have tried to distance themselves from Google, British newspapers are taking the opposite approach. Some have bought search terms in order to “up” their exposure; others have attempted to optimize their websites and their articles according to the search engine’s preferences.

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows and you sure don’t have to count circulation figures and ad pages to know that internet has been a disasterous paradigm buster for newspapers in particular and print journalism in general.

The lines that separate print and online journalism are becoming ever blurred as we move into a new year. Old media has been hesitant to embrace the Internet as a new frontier of information, but it appears at least one major newspaper is looking to create a holistic, three-dimensional reading experience for its subscribers.

A report released by the U.S. Census Bureau documents the projected amount of time that the average American will devote to the different media platforms in the upcoming year. According to the findings, the Internet has moved ahead of newspapers in the grand scheme of modern media consumption.

To help with the transition from purely print-based operations to the online world, it has been suggested that newspapers need to have more than static text and images on their websites to keep the attention of their visitors.

Google’s having a slow time making inroads into the print ad space, but the announcement of their deal with 50 major newspapers is certainly a big push forward.

Circulation throughout the newspaper industry fell again, its decline over the past six months rivaling some previous record drops. Blame the Internet and its growth for the deep hurting felt throughout print newsrooms across the US.

Viewership figures compared to print circulation numbers by Nielsen//NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America showed significant growth in the percentage of readers turning to the websites of papers rather than the dead-tree editions.

Gannett, Tribune, and McClatchy have reworked their ownership percentages of online classifieds site CareerBuilder, the Topix.net news aggregator, and the ShopLocal.com search engine.

Through a mishmash of Internet news headlines, it’s becoming obvious that the lines between local, national, and international are growing more blurred than ever.

USA Today reports circulation for newspapers has declined during the past six months.

There’s a dirty little secret in the newspaper industry. In fact, it’s a secret that might one day cause serious damage to newspaper brands and give further rise to blogs, unless there’s action.

New data from Gallup notes that one in five Americans say they consult blogs “frequently” or at least “occasionally.”

BBC News: Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla Foods says the ongoing boycott of Danish products in the Middle East had so far cost it between 40m and 50m.

A group of newspaper publishers say they have had enough of watching the search engines soar to success thanks in part to the content they publish.

Agence-France Presse demanded Google stop including its content in Google News, and a group of 18,000 newspapers could press search engines on the issue of content aggregation too.

The World Association of Newspapers is lobbying against Google News, a non revenue-producing search engine that sends tons of traffic their way.

Gizmodo has the goods on a new device from Sony called the Reader that displays text and images in a very readable form.

Earlier this month I reported about an editorial in the Contra Costa Times that took the fire department and board of supervisors to task for spending money on PR agencies during difficult financial times.