WebProNews

500 Publishers Onboard With Journalism Online

Journalism Online, the start-up that plans to monetize newspapers websites by charging readers for content, has announced that more than 500 publications have signed onto to its platform, which is slated to launch in the fall.

USA Today Launching Digital Edition

Gannett has announced it will launch an e- edition of its USA Today newspaper. The e-edition will launch Monday August 3 and will be a replica of the print version of USA Today but will feature additional interactive content. The e-edition will also include a Saturday-Sunday version called USA Today Extra, the first ever-regular weekend product from USA Today.

Online Newspapers In The U.K. Attract Large Global Audience

Nearly 16 million people in the U.K. visited a newspaper web site in March, representing a 43-percent reach of the country's online population, according to comScore.

Newspapers Best Opportunity Is Online

As the newspaper industry continues to struggle its best opportunity is online, according to a new annual survey by the Center for the Digital Future at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. The survey found that Internet users read online newspapers for 53 minutes per week, the highest level seen so far. In contrast, Internet users in 2007 spent 41 minutes per week. The survey also found that 22 percent of Internet users stopped their subscriptions to a printed newspaper or magazine because they could access the same content online.

Online Newspaper Traffic Up 10 Percent

While the newspaper industry continues to struggle, one bright spot is online visitors to newspaper Web sites increased 10.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009 attracting an average of 73.3 million monthly unique visitors, according to a report from Nielsen Online commissioned by the Newspaper Association of America.

Google Says It Helps Newspaper Websites

Google says it does not misappropriate newspaper content and actually helps them by driving traffic to their Web sites.

Murdoch Says Newspapers Must Charge For Online Content

News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday that newspapers must find a way to charge for online content to make up for declining ad revenue. "People are used to reading everything on the net for free, and that's going to have to change," Murdoch told attendees at the annual Cable Show event in Washington, D.C. Murdoch cited The New York Times as an example, saying it has a "very, very good Web site." He said he did not believe the paper would make any money online unless it changes its current business model.

Twitter Bigger Than Newspapers in the UK

Data from Hitwise shows that Twitter is getting more traffic than most newspaper sites in the UK. Twitter is the 54th most visited site there. Twitter has overtaken sites like the Guardian, Times, Sun, Telegraph, and even Google News UK. Daily Mail is the only main newspaper home page that received more traffic than Twitter in the UK.

Should Online Newspaper Content Be Free?

Shane Richmond writing at Telegraph.co.uk has an interesting piece up about whether or not online newspaper content should be free.

Online Newspaper Advertising Sees Slowdown

The growth in online newspaper advertising, the one area that has been a reliable source of revenue for the industry is now slowing down.After 17 quarters of growth, online newspaper advertising fell 2.4 percent in the second quarter compared with last year, to $777 million according to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA)It was the only year-over-year decrease since the NAA began tracking online revenue in 2003.