content

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt has added his voice to the debate about charging for online news content. Speaking via video link with British broadcasting executives, Schmidt said there is so much free content online that many publishers would not succeed if they put their content behind a pay- wall.

Remember not so long ago when Rupert Murdoch was espousing the future of paid content? It is unavoidable was the cry but there has been not much said since. That is, until Barry Diller stated his version of the story at the Goldman Communacopia conference as reported by the Business Insider.

Content sites continue to grab the attention of the majority of Internet users, up from 34 percent of total time spent in 2003 to 42 percent in 2009, a 24 percent increase, according to a new report by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).

YouTube's Content ID system appears to have caught on in a big way.  This afternoon, a senior product manager stated that over 1,000 content owners now make use of it, and that they've provided more than 1 million reference files containing about 100,000 hours' worth of material.

Google has made some recommendations for "best practices" for sites that allow users to create their own sites. They give the examples of their own Google Sites and Blogger. So in other words, if you run some type of site that allows users to make their own pages, you may want to pay attention.

Google has plans to introduce a micro payment system aimed at helping online publishers earn additional revenue. In a document submitted to the Newspaper Association of America in a response to a request made by the NAA to a number of companies, Google outlined its proposed payment plan.

We all know that social media is "where it's at" these days. People are spending more and more of their time on social networking sites. Many are checking their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts before even checking their email (or even getting out of bed in some cases).

The majority (53.1%) of Internet users belong to at least one social networking site, but the amount of time spent on the sites is somewhat short, compared to overall time spent online, according to a new report from Burst Media. Among 18-34 year olds, 40 percent spend less than 30 minutes per day on sites like Facebook and MySpace. The top content categories for that demographic actively seek out entertainment news (48.6%), gaming (40.5%), local/national news (37.3%) and social media (35.5%).