TUESDAY'S LINKS: 'Times' of London Launches in U.S., Newspaper Web Ads Gaining, the Blog Effect

By: E&P Staff In today's edition, online newspaper ads are catching up with print ads, grammar junkies are taking their passion online, and the Times of London launches its U.S. version today.


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Online Newspaper Ads Gaining on Print
IN the matchup between the print and online versions of newspapers, signs of the Internet's ascendancy are growing stronger. "I think the handwriting is kind of on the wall that there is a large migration to the Web," said Colby Atwood, a newspaper analyst and a vice president at Borrell Associates. "Increasing amounts of revenue and focus should be on the online properties. This is a transition that's taking place over several years here. It's not happening overnight, but it's definitely happening."


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Kurds Launch English Newspaper in Northern Iraq
An English-language newspaper has begun publication out of northern Iraq's Kurdish enclave. Soma -- Kurdish for perspective -- is a biweekly Iraqi-Kurdish digest with national distribution and a launch print run of 4,000 copies. With peshmerga soldiers and drivers from the presidential bodyguard distributing the publication, and the kind of Iraqi establishment contact base that other media take years to develop, Soma's first steps have been unorthodox to say the least.


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Times of London Launches U.S. Version Today
Observers of the journalism industry noted with curiosity the sudden appeal of the United States for British media outlets, particularly at a time when U.S. newspapers generally are struggling with falling circulation and advertising revenues. "It's really puzzling," said Bonnie Brownlee, associate dean of the Indiana University School of Journalism. "This is some novelty pipe dream by British news organizations that are hoping to sell in the United States. It's hard to see how they're going to make any money. The BBC is one thing - there's hope for them. But the Times? Who wants it? It's not what it used to be. It's a Murdoch paper! And it's so weird reading it as a tabloid."


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Blogs Forcing Newspapers to Reexamine Role
Think blogging is the Pet Rock of this decade? Think again. Newspapers are adding blogging features to their Web sites every day, and many large dailies have at least a few writers and editors who share their thoughts about matters large and small.


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Style Wars in Cyberspace
From Washington to Dallas ? we hope that's not a false range ? style mavens are holding forth on hyphens, word usage (or is it use?) and the true meaning of Groundhog Day. Copy blogs aren't quite in the major league of Web logs; one of the most-read of the 20 or so copy blogs garners about 13,000 unique visitors per month. Still, the copy editors' online diatribes have extended beyond the rim to grammar geeks, writers and English teachers, who fill the comments sections with polite but passionate debate on dangling participles and prepositional endings.


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Google Will Take on Excel With Spreadsheet Program
Google Inc. plans to introduce an online spreadsheet service today, heightening its competition with Microsoft Corp. and its rival's core personal software business. With the product, users will be able to create, store and share spreadsheets, widely used for household and business accounting. "We're allowing people to organize their own information and make it accessible to people they want to share it with," said Jonathan Rochelle, product manager for Google Spreadsheets.


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Publisher Lands in Trouble in Baja
Publisher Nancy Conroy has created a niche for her twice-monthly newspaper by printing the kind of real estate information you won't find in glossy brochures. Readers of the English-language Gringo Gazette have learned about time-share hucksters, stolen deposits, flimsy contracts and other pitfalls that have tripped up Americans racing to grab a piece of Mexico's fast-growing Baja peninsula. It's a focus that has won her friends among would-be property buyers. It has also made her enemies among developers and cost her some advertisers. The outspoken USC Law School graduate may soon pay a higher price: her freedom.


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News Corp. Reportedly Interested in Brooklyn Papers
Escalating the territorial battle among local newspaper rivals, New York Post parent company News Corp. is seeking to acquire Courier-Life Publications, a chain of 11 community newspapers in Brooklyn, according to industry sources.


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Putin Hails Press Freedom but Local TV Ignores Protest
President Vladimir Putin told newspaper executives from around the world on Monday that press freedom was safe in Russia, but protesters gatecrashed the conference and shouted that he was muzzling free speech. Russia's three national television stations -- which critics often point to as evidence the media has been cowed under Putin -- covered the conference in their daytime news bulletins but made no mention of the protest.