Online video and social media ad revenue gains are slowing, while search is still on top, according to Magna Global, paidContent reported Tuesday.

Meanwhile, digital media growth through 2009 will continue to expand, Magna reports, with the group's director of Industry Analysis pointing out in his Emerging Media Forecast that “traditional media never died.”

Brian Weiser also stated in the forecast that although traditional media continues to thrive, he expects social media to grow 37.4 percent to US$1.474 billion, a stark difference between growth from 2006 to 2007, when the sector grew 141.7 percent.

Also, despite its status as having the fastest growth in all emerging media, online video, which is seeing a 45 percent growth to $805 million in 2009, is beginning to see a slowing of growth, Weiser predicts. Online video grew 67.4 percent in 2007, and in 2008 it is expected to grow 54.2 percent.

Search, however, will continue its climb, with its growth slowing slightly, at 24 percent to $13.8 billion, compared with 2008's expected 26.5 percent gain from last year, paidContent reported.

The San Francisco-based Social Media Club announced Wednesday that 42 industry leaders will form an interim board of directors, MarketWatch reported.

The new media and advocacy organisation aims to promote “media literacy; support of industry standards efforts such as Creative Commons licensing, Microformats, Data Portability and OpenID; discussion and promotion of ethical behaviour; and sharing our knowledge among our members and the industry community at large,” said Chris Heuer, founder of the SMC and partner at the Conversation Group.

The interim board will aim to chart several important “organisational and strategic deliverables, including development of membership goals, acceleration of local chapter development, increase in adoption of industry standards and implementation of a new legal structure to enhance future growth,” according to the Business Wire report, posted by MarketWatch.

The SMC has almost 200 paying members and more than 500 open members, with corporate members including Business Wire and SHIFT Communications, SMC President and Co-Founder Kristie Wells told Business Wire.

The board will also look to further research, as well as strengthen relationships with organisations in related fields, such as the Society for New Communications Research, Business Wire reported.

News Corp. is looking to venture into Japan's 600.3 billion yen (US$5.6 billion) online ad market in September, hoping to act as a middle man by acquiring ad space, finding the marketers to fill it and distributing the ads, the Evening Standard reported Tuesday.

A Japanese report said the firm has already established an online operation in its Japanese business and might try to acquire online Japanese ad agencies.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is trying to increase its international online ad revenue to $500 million per year over five years, the according to Evening Standard article, posted by ThisIsMoney.co.uk.

Following the company's June downgrade by Standard & Poor's from B minus to CCC, MediaNews Group (MNG) CEO Dean Singleton sent a memo last week reassuring staff about the company's future, The Paper Trail blog reported.

MNG's major investor Hearst continues to support the company. Singleton mentioned that MNG would soon announce a future transaction with Hearst.

Strategies like the joint Kaangoo and PS investment or the Yahoo! consortium are in progress, Singleton declared.

“MediaNews doesn't believe cost cutting is a long term strategy. However, we recognise that there is a structural change in our business, and we must align our cost structure accordingly,” Singleton stated in his memo. “Individual newspapers can only cut costs so far without impacting the perceived value to advertisers and readers.”

Singleton pointed out that the company is in agreement with its bank deal and is trying to diminish its total debt.

He criticised rating agencies like S&P for not being fast enough to revise ratings, and said that they “have now gone to an extreme and are being overly conservative with their ratings.”

Editor & Publisher reported the ratings downgrade in an article June 20.

In light of the falling market value of U.S. newspaper publishers and the decrease in investors interest, ranks of newspaper stock analysts seem to have diminished in number, Reuters reported.

In 2006, over two-dozen analysts were available, whereas today it is barely half of that. Firms like Prudential, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and UBS trimmed the number of employed analysts, as large research departments become more expensive to upkeep and financial market revenue plunged.

"The fewer analysts you have, the less information that's distributed, the less appearance there is in the minds of institutional investors and so it diminishes the industry as a whole," John Morton, a newspaper analyst who operates his own research firm, said.

If the ranks are not refilled, then “decades of intelligence and critical thinking” may be lost, according to Reuters.

“Analysts help investors go beyond the general perception and provide deeper reports on factors affecting individual companies,” Reuters reported.

Even in a mobile-advanced country such as Japan, where everyone has a speedy multimedia handsets, many marketers are still not ready to use mobile campaigns, eMarketer reported.

According to a study conducted by the Nikkei Advertising Research Institute (NARI) in June 2008, nearly 62 percent of responding marketers in Japan said they were not interested in using mobile ads.

The study also found that picture, banner ads and mobile e-mail ads are three formats respondents had most interests in.

According to the research firm eMarketer, the NARI survey 2008 echoed findings from the 2007 survey. Among all the companies surveyed last year that advertised on mobile, about 75 percent said they sent picture ads, six out of 10 sent text ads, and four out of 10 sent mobile e-mail ads this year.

The main reason for marketers to focus on simple ad formats is that most mobile marketers are using the platform for direct response, eMarketer reported. Integrated campaigns involving mobile are still in the infancy.

"This is not a result of reluctance on the part of brands and their agencies to inject more brand-oriented messaging into mobile advertising. It is a direct result of the simple fact that mobile media in Japan seem more effective for sales promotion and direct response right now," according to John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer.

About 10 percent of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's 1,300 full-time workers will be laid off by the newspaper's publisher, Journal Sentinel Inc., the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The 130 job cuts are due to a downturn in ad sales, and will be made by the end of the year.

Journal Sentinel's shares were at a 52-week low of US$4.39 Wednesday, but have been as high as $13.53 in the same time period, the AP reported in an article posted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Employees will be given the option of leaving voluntarily, and will receive health care benefits and severance pay, the AP reported.

“Our advertising customers — especially car dealers, real estate agents, hiring officials, retailers and financial institutions — have been battered by a perfect storm of deteriorating credit conditions, slowing home sales, contracting company size and higher gas prices,” said Elizabeth Brenner, president and chief operating officer of publishing at Journal Communications, according to the AP.

Mobile gaming revenues would reach $6.3 billion worldwide in 2011, up from $4.5 billion in 2008, according to the June 2008 data released by Gartner.

Gartner also said that these revenues were promising in regions with low PC and game console penetration, as well as among both low- and high-income users, eMarketer reported.

Asia-Pacific will still be the largest market for mobile games, with revenues up from $2.3 billion in 2008 and over $3.4 billion by 2011. In North American, the market is expected to reach $1.2 billion in 2011, up from $845 million in 2008, eMarketer reported.

Gartner's new global projection for 2011 is about half lower than what it announced last year, mostly due to ongoing economic concerns.

Estimates by other companies are similar. Understanding & Solutions predicts mobile games would bring in $6 billion revenues in 2011, up from $3.6 billion in 2007, and Juniper Research projects mobile gaming revenues would reach $16 billion in 2012, eMarketer reported.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation will not sell community newspapers it obtained as part of its Dow Jones & Co. buyout in December last year, the Associated Press reported.

The Ottaway group newspapers, which News Corp. has previously slated for sale, include Oregon's Medford Mail Tribune and the Times Herald-Record in New York. Several of the newspapers posted stories online Tuesday stating the sale out not take place after all.

News Corp. bought the Wall Street Journal publisher for US$5 billion, and before the deal closed, the company stated it would consider selling the regional newspaper group, which operates eight daily newspapers and 15 weeklies, according to the AP. The newspapers are spread across seven states.

Newspaper company valuations have dropped since the takeover, but News Corp. did not give a reason for deciding to not sell. A News Corp. spokesperson referred the AP to Dow Jones, which declined to comment, the AP reported.

The Swedish government intends to eradicate the press advertising tax amidst claims that it is “unfair” and “ideologically wrong”, reported the European Journalism Centre last Monday.

"Advertising is part of a company's marketing, which is a central and healthy part of a market economy - nothing that should be subject to penal taxes," said Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth.

The Swedish Newspaper Publisher's Association claimed that it was inequitable that press advertising is taxed while other media like the Internet, TV and radio are not, according to the European Journalism Centre.

Text-messaging is the most important feature U.S. mobile users are looking for while buying a new handset, according to a new study conducted by Amplitude Research on behalf of Access Systems Americas, Media Post reported Thursday.

About three quarters of mobile phone subscribers surveyed said text-messaging is the most critical among other 18 mobile features. Mobile camera was ranked on the second with 67 percent, followed by e-mail (63 percent) and online access (61 percent).

Mobile video and music were chosen by about one-third of the respondents, according to Media Post.

According to the survey, nearly 40 percent said they have added new applications to their phones, while 21 percent have even got six or more applications. About 40 percent track stocks, get alerts about traffic, weather and news on their mobile, 30 percent do mobile banking, and 16 percent make credit card or mortgage payments via mobile, Media Post reported.