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Google is preparing to announce new Gmail features that would extend its reach into the social networking realm, the Financial Times reported today, dubbing the plans a "Facebook assault." This following last week's news that Facebook is planning to launch an e-mail service.

The search giant is looking to give Gmail users a way to aggregate contacts' updates, which can currently be viewed in Google's Chat service, within Gmail's inbox. This would create a "stream of notifications that would echo the similar real-time streams from Facebook and Twitter."

News International Commercial has launched outdoor and print advertisements that aim to show the power of newspapers and magazines, MediaWeek.co.uk reported today.

The ads are based on research from Microsoft Advertising, which in December stated that for large retailers, print advertising is more effective than online ads, and more than twice as effective as television ads. Each £1 spent on print ads garner £5 in revenue, while TV and Internet ads bring in £2.15 and £3.44, respectively.

The Globe and Mail will publish three special Sunday editions for the British Columbia market to provide more coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, making it the only seven-day newspaper in the region, MarketingMag reported Friday.

The special editions will be published Feb. 14, 21 and 28. They will be delivered to subscribers, sold at more than 1,000 retail outlets in Vancouver, Whistler and Victoria, and be available to the rest of Canada as an online e-edition.

MediaNews Group will begin charging for online content in May, adopting a metered paywall system similar to the one The New York Times announced it will put up, Bloomberg reported Friday. The U.S. newspaper publisher will use Journalism Online LLC to handle processing of payments for its Web sites.

The test will begin at the company's Enterprise-Record in Chico, California, and Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania. If it's successful, the paywall may be instituted at more than 50 dailies owned by MediaNews, including The Denver Post and San Jose Mercurcy News, the Denver Business Journal reported Saturday.

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Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter has announced that it will cut between 100 and 120 jobs after sustaining multi-million euro losses, The Local reports. This amounts to almost one sixth of the newspaper's workforce.

The company employs 580 people, with half of these in the newsroom. Most of the cuts are expected to affect editorial staff, with more than a third of these set to go. The newspaper reported losses of 97 million kronor, or around €10 million, last year. Despite this, union official Hans Arbman said that the cuts were unexpected.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

Facebook is working on an e-mail product, and may have Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and others in its cross hairs.

The social networking site is planning to launch a completely new e-mail product in the place of its current message product, internally known as Project Titan, TechCrunch reported today. "Tacking a real webmail product on top of those vanity URLs and Facebook connect is something even Google may shudder at," Michael Arrington wrote, adding that he doesn't think the new service will be a "Gmail killer."

Image: castortroy520's flickr photostream

Five magazine publishers will put competition aside to create a marketing campaign promoting their medium, MediaWeek reported Thursday. Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, Time Inc. and Wenner Media will fund the promotional campaign, to be launched in April. More details will be announced in March.

Young & Rubicam will create the campaign, which will be published in magazine ads in titles owned by the companies. The campaign may have digital offerings as well.

Metro International, the largest free newspaper group in the world, reported a profit in the fourth quarter of last year following minimised operations and a growing share in "most of its markets," said Reuters today. 

MonsterWorldwide has made a deal to acquire Yahoo's HotJobs, a competing recruiting site, which could mean up to 200 of the 800 newspapers Yahoo works with will be cut out of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium, Editor & Publisher reported today. Yahoo is receiving US$225 million in cash for the purchase.

When members join the consortium, they can choose one of two contracts - one for the display side, which includes search and display advertising, content distribution and its APT ad platform, or the other, which includes recruitment ads through HotJobs, according to paidContent. Six-hundred of the 800 consortium members have the HotJobs contract, while about 200 smaller newspapers rely on the group's recruitment services for job ads revenue.