Nearly 5,000 text messages were sent every second in the United Kingdom in December, ending 2007 with a text message sort of bang. The full year saw 57 billion texts sent, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

The next step for Britons is picture messaging, which the Mobile Data Association shows is beginning to take off.

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McClatchy Chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt told analysts and investors Wednesday that “growing online revenue is a significant priority for this company,” Editor & Publisher reported.

As 2008 shapes up to be an even more uncertain economic time in the United States than 2007 was, Pruitt said McClatchy will focus on Internet growth to get the company through tough times.

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Newspaper publisher Calkins Media Group announced Tuesday it will restructure the company for future growth, regrouping its print, broadcast and interactive media divisions, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The Pennsylvania-based media company owns eight newspapers, including the Bucks County Courier Times, and three television stations.

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The Welsh language minister announced Tuesday that an extra subsidy of £200,000 per year until 2011 has been created for Welsh-language newspapers and magazines, BBC News reported.

Rhodri Glyn Thomas said the “pot” of funds will be available for print or online, and will be administered over the next three years by the Welsh Books Council.

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According to research firm iReach, online advertising in Ireland is increasing, but has failed to keep pace with the UK.

Internet advertising accounted for 12 percent of total media advertising in the UK last year, but only accounted for 2.5 percent in Ireland. However, according to eMarketer, this may not be a fair comparison since the UK has one of the highest rates worldwide. Even the rate in the United States is lower - only 7.4 percent in 2007.

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Time Warner's AOL has purchased an online affiliate marketing network named Buy.at in order to bolster its ad infrastructure, MediaPost reported. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Since 2007, AOL's acquisitions have mostly focused on ad serving to build its overarching Platform-A advertising unit, while Buy.at is expected to give AOL a more direct relationship to online retailers.

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Google plans to enter a market where others fear to tread: the Chinese digital music market, where search leader Baidu leads the pack linking to “illegal” music download Web sites and has even won court ruling against labels, PaidContent reported Wednesday.

Google is in the late planning stages of a joint venture with Top100.cn, a Chinese online music company which currently sells licensed music downloads. The new service would allow Google’s search engine to provide free and licensed music downloads in China.

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More than 800 users from around the world have joined a Facebook group formed to defend 23-year-old Afghani journalism student Sayad Parwez Kambaksh, who was sentenced to death by an Afghan court for insulting Islam. Another group, Save Sayed Pervez (sic) Kambaksh, has garnered more than 2,000 members, and a total of 19 groups on Kambaksh's behalf have been created on the social networking site.

Kambaksh's crime: downloading from the Internet and distributing to fellow students a paper that states the oppression of women is not justified by the Koran or Muhammad's teachings.

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