For the first time, fewer survey respondent – 56 percent – ranked newspapers as  important or very important sources of information for them than those who said the Internet (78 percent) and television (68 percent) were important or very important sources of information. The number for newspapers was down from 60 percent in the school’s 2008 survey.

But, 61 percent of Internet users said less than half of online information is reliable, and 14 percent said that little or none of it is reliable. The latter figure is up from previous years, according to Media Daily News.

Looks like ease of use – the computer, TV or mobile device people are connected to anyway vs. a different copy of the newspaper arriving in the driveway each day – is more important that the information itself.

More than 20 percent of respondents said they would not miss the printed newspaper.

The downward spiral in print newspaper circulation no doubt will be accelerated by  advances in online delivery of news content through e-readers or other handheld electronic devices,” Jeffrey I. Cole, director of  the school’s Center for the Digital Future, said in a statement quoted by Editor & Publisher. “After years of aborted attempts, these advances finally appear to be practical and  affordable methods of providing electronic news content to readers.  If so, what will that mean for  the future of the traditional print newspaper?”

Meanwhile, 70 percent of Internet users said online advertising is “annoying,” and half said they never click on Web ads. But 55 percent said they would rather put up with Web advertising than pay for content.

The deal adds Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, to an advertising consortium that includes more than 800 members, according to Online Media Daily. McClatchy newspapers, the third-largest publisher, was one of the first members of the consortium, formed in November 2006.

Like other publishers in the deal, Gannett may also provide local content for Yahoo! properties in the U.S., including the Yahoo! homepage.

“To date, the consortium has sold more than 40,000 ad campaigns onto Yahoo! totaling more than $100 million in sales to date, according to Lem Lloyd, vice president of channel sales at Yahoo!,” says Online Media Daily.

Yahoo’s publishing platform enables “local newspapers to target consumers according to geographic, demographic and behavioral factors in ads that appear on Yahoo! properties from mail to sports to news.”

Yahoo!, which at the time was being run by former Knight Ridder executives, said at the launch of the program that it was teaming with newspapers because they already had local advertising staffs.

Local advertising accounts for about half of the $245 billion in total U.S. ad spending, Online Media Daily says.

Gannett announced in May that it would begin to sell online marketing services, another program adopted earlier by McClatchy. GannettLocal offers search engine marketing, e-mail, digital display, website and geo-targeted print/flyers.

The ad supplement will promote Samsung and run for eight months across Wired, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveler, Architectural Digest and GQ.

Having the online staff produce the supplement was seen as a way  “to avoid ruffling the feathers of print editors, who are seen as more sensitive than their Web counterparts to being asked to serve up content on a directive from the advertiser,” MediaWeek says.

“Condé Nast insisted that editors and writers had free reign to select and reject content for the Samsung insert,” Paid Content says in its report.

Condé Nast did the same thing a few years ago for a section promoting Microsoft.

“Advertisers like advertorials when they contain original edit, because they can direct the theme if not the actual content, ensuring it’s relevant to their message,” MediaWeek says. “Meanwhile, the publication technically is abiding by American Society of Magazine Editors rules because it has the final say over the edit content.”

As best we can tell, MediaWeek means Condé Nast is abiding by the rule, technically, that says: “In order for a publication’s chief editor to be able to monitor compliance with these guidelines, every effort must be made to show all advertising pages, sections and their placement to the editor far enough in advance to allow for necessary changes.” But not necessarily: “A magazine’s editorial staff members should not be involved in producing advertising in that magazine.”

The Sacramento and Kansas City sites will get them first, and the program will roll out to the rest of the chain over the next few months.

“The agreement provides a key component in McClatchy’s local marketplace initiative designed to bring together consumers looking for bargains and merchants seeking increased sales,” E&P says.

“For Groupon, the agreement is part of a larger initiative to offer a new, incremental revenue stream to major publishers.”

Groupon negotiates discounted deals with local businesses, and then sends free e-mail alerts to subscribers. Deals are activated if a minimum number of people agree to buy, which encourages subscribers to share the promotion with others via social media tools.

The sites for the Tallahassee Democrat, The Greenville (S.C.) News and The (St. George, Utah) Spectrum are charging $9.95 a month for online-only access. The fee for web access bundled with a print subscription varies by market.

Gannett’s Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett’s Community Publishing Division, told Mitchell the company targeted sites with niche content – such as Clemson football coverage in Greenville and Florida State football in Tallahassee.

“We want to test the idea that our journalism is more of a service than a product, and that we should give readers a selection of delivery methods,” Marymount said.

Robin Pence, Gannett’s vice president of corporate communications, said the company will use what it learns from the test sites “to help us develop our long-term strategy for paid content.”

Hearst Magazines is launching them with a video for Gillette’s Venus Bikini Kit that includes a lifestyle expert providing bathing suit-selection and grooming tips along with mentions of the product and click-to-buy opportunities.

The ads are meant to look more like editorial content than advertising, Mediaweek says.

This fall, Hearst will launch large-format fixed-panel and pushdown ads integrated with editorial content. The entire package will be sharable via Facebook, giving advertisers more potential exposure for their message.

Hearst says the high-def ads get a high response in surveys and, as Mediaweek puts it, “It doesn’t hurt that they bring in 20-30 percent more than standard Web ads.”

“Under the Boocoo.com business model, ZIP codes are ‘licensed’ to newspapers and other media partners who then have the exclusive right to split transactional fees generated by the auction site,” according to Editor & Publisher. “If the buyer and seller are from different ZIP codes, the fee is split. If they are from the same ZIP code, the newspaper keeps the entire transaction fee.”

The program was developed by Ranger Data Technologies, which says it has licensed 20 percent of the approximately 29,700 residential ZIP codes in the U.S.

Media Daily News says the service will initially have a total print audience of 22 million readers.

Listing fees start at $0.20 for items priced $9.99 or under, and range up to $1.60 for items priced $200 or more, with Boocoo charging the seller 6 percent of the final price up to the first $1,000.

The site will be activated on newspaper and other media sites today prior to a national launch June 21.

Boocoo.com was featured in the April 2010 print edition of E&P.

“Among people aged 45 and older, 68 percent share news stories they see via e-mail, while 54 percent of those under 45 use Facebook,” a Min Online report about the survey says. “Among those 24 and younger, however, 90 percent use either Facebook or Twitter as the way they trade interesting news items with others.”

Regardless, almost everyone — 82 percent of adults — has “interacted with a news story on a site” and 83 percent say they are comfortable posting comments about online news stories.

The survey also found that people will read news from multiple sources, with as many as 80 percent saying they choose unfamiliar sources online.

“The results generally confirm publisher fears that online information gatherers have limited brand loyalty,” the report says. “The search-driven information economy has effectively leveled the brand playing field and challenged the brand equity many publishers spent decades building.”

A company memo quoted by the Gannett Blog says, “GannettLocal is a new business model focused on working with small and medium-sized business to provide them a high-touch marketing consultation and a suite of multiplatform solutions (search engine marketing, e-mail, digital display, website and geo-targeted print/flyers) delivered by a team of dedicated experts over the phone.”

That’s “a high-touch marketing consultation … over the phone.”

GannettLocal is based in Phoenix and already in use by the the website azcentral at Gannett’s Arizona Republic.

After the user types in the business name and location, PlaceLocal builds a display ad automatically, “scouring the Internet for references to (the business)” the NYT says. “Then it combines the photographs it finds with reviews, customer comments and other text into a customized online ad for the business.”

“The company has … signed up the McClatchy newspaper chain and will soon be on some of its Web sites,” Roger Lee, chief operating officer of PaperG, the program’s developer, told the newspaper.

The program is already in use on 32 local media websites, including Time Out New York and Time Out Chicago, and on 29 network TV affiliates owned or managed by Hearst Television, Lee said.

Advertisers pay about $150 a month to $500 or more, based primarily on how many times the ad is shown, and PaperG takes a percentage of this fee.

“Because the program creates an ad in moments, it saves the time of people on the Web site who might normally need to build the ad themselves, or work with the customer to build one. That can translate into lower charges,” Shaina Park, a sales representative at Time Out New York said.

Victor Wong, PaperG’s chief executive, said sales reps at media companies also use PlaceLocal to create sample or “spec” ads to show potential customers.