A recession would put newspapers in even greater financial danger, as it would likely cause revenue and earnings declines to accelerate, Goldman Sachs said Wednesday.

“We believe this secular trend will be exacerbated by a cyclical downturn in 2008, particularly affecting the classified categories, resulting in what we believe will be the industry's weakest revenue performance since 2001,” Goldman analysts stated in a research note, according to Reuters.

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The Seattle Times Co. will lay off 17 non-newsroom employees at its flagship newspaper, the Seattle Times, and cut another 69 jobs through attrition, claiming it will save about $21 million, the newspaper announced Wednesday.

Vice President Jill Mackie said the Times will also reduce the newspaper's width by 1 inch in 2009 to save on newsprint, consolidate some weekday and Sunday features sections and stop publication of a Sunday tabloid news section for Southeast King County readers, which was launched in spring 2007.

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Although online PDF versions of newspapers cost next to nothing to produce and post on newspaper Web sites, many newspapers are dropping them because they are not popular enough with readers.

The Daily Telegraph has quietly ended its production of Telegraph PM, a daily printable PDF version of the paper. Launched in 2006 for commuters to print out and read on their way home, the Telegraph at the time said it demonstrated “our commitment to being at the cutting edge of the new-media age,” MediaGuardian reported Wednesday.

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Youku.com, China's biggest video sharing site, is approaching some records made by the world's largest video sharing site, YouTube.

Youku.com said Wednesday morning it has passed two significant milestones, including registering over 100 million daily video views during the week ending December 16, 2007. Youku had more than 12 million daily visitors in that week, according to Nielsen Online's Nielsen/NetRatings unit. That is 20-fold growth for the one-year-old video sharing site, and indicates a great increase of 30 million daily video views since last October.

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2008 will be a harvest year for Indian e-commerce, according to B2B portal Tradeindia.

”E-commerce transactions, which are currently growing at the rate of 30 percent to 40 percent in India, are expected to reach $100 billion (this year)," Bikky Khosla, CEO of Tradeindia, told the Economic Times. "With the advent of the Internet, far-flung global markets have shrunk into one small market, breaking (down) the geographical and other conventional barriers involved in trading."

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Media groups Promotora de Informaciones SA (Prisa) of Spain and Lagardere of France are looking to “substantially” raise their minority stakes in French daily newspaper Le Monde, Thomson Financial and Reuters reported Wednesday.

Thomson based its reports on comments by a Prisa spokesperson, while Reuters cited a report by Challenges.fr.

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Marketwire announced Wednesday it will acquire Miami-based International Media Services Companies, which operates financial news aggregation, media management, newswire translation and clipping and monitoring services in Latin America and Asia.

The Toronto-based news release service company did not disclose financial terms, but did state that following the acquisition, it will expand the company into 17 offices on four continents. IMS provides services to hundreds of customers in six countries, including China, Mexico and Brazil.

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Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf has agreed to open the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2008, the global summit meetings of the world's press, to be held in Göteborg, Sweden, next June.

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