The English-language Standard, a business daily in Hong Kong, will go free beginning Monday.

According to its publisher, Sing Tao News Corp., the move to drop costs for readers is a push to compete with the paper's rival, the South China Morning Post, and to acquire more readers. The free publication will be distributed at over 80 spots, including schools, airports, hotels, and business districts throughout Hong Kong.

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Advertising on newspaper Web sites in the United States reached $796 million in the second quarter, an increase of 19.3 percent from last year, according to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America.

Not surprisingly, the 13th consecutive quarter of growth in the double-digits saw Web site advertising continue to grow, now at seven percent of total newspaper ad spending, compared to 5.4 percent last year, the NAA stated.

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Online newspaper advertising is still a relatively small portion of overall advertising income for newspapers, but its continued growth indicates how important it is, and how integral it will be in the future.

Advertising on newspaper Web sites has grown in the double digits for 13 quarters in a row, since the Newspaper Association of America started reporting online ad spending in 2004, and now makes up seven percent of overall newspaper ad spending in the United States, compared to 5.4 percent in the second quarter one year ago.

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The Trinity Mirror will launch a free weekly business paper in Scotland, the first freesheet to be put out by the Daily Mirror's publisher.

The new weekly, Business 7, will be distributed to nearly 20,000 people every Friday morning.

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Local newspapers in the United Kingdom are pushing to publish industry-wide Web site traffic numbers, launching a new tool Tuesday which will detail readership across platforms and help advertisers plan and target local advertising.

Although traffic data from 800 of the 1,100 local newspaper Web sites in the UK on the Newspaper Society's Media Portfolio Database will initially come from publishers, the tool has been developed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic, the official industry auditor. Many of these papers will be auditing online users for the first time.

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Searching for new ways to entice marketers, newspapers are looking to make scratch-and-sniff advertisements a new part of print advertising.

The Los Angeles Times will carry a scratch-and-sniff ad Sunday in a 32-page autumn films section. The advertisement, for “Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium,” will smell like frosted cake, according to a Tuesday New York Times article.

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Widespread adoption of broadband technology means streaming video is now reaching most Web users, and a surprising 70 percent of people age 35 and older are now viewing online video, according to a new Advertising.com study.

"The Internet is still seen first and foremost as an information resource," said Lynda Clarizio, president of Advertising.com. "With news clips remaining the most popular type of streamed content, video viewing habits reflect that status."

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