The CEO of the MediaNews newspaper chain, Dean Singleton, offers some new views from his company about online and print journalism in an interview with the Colorado Statesman.

Among other tidbits:

1. The company will stop giving away its content. It'll provide some things free and create stronger packages it will sell.
2. The newspaper remains a viable home for advertising.
3. The online content will be less driven by newsrooms and more by readers and listings.

Gordon Borrell, who oversees the Borrell Associates research and consulting firm, is asserting that the online advertising business is much larger than most believe.

Borrell recently suggested that e-mail advertising alone could top $12 billion within a few years, a number well beyond anyone else's estimates.

"Are we nuts?" Borrell asks. Well, he defends himself by suggesting his methodology is more about ground-up understanding of the spending, not the revenues, in the industry. The revenue-based approach essentially tallies what the major recipients get, but there is a larger story out there of advertising on smaller sites.

He calculates, too, that there are countless smaller companies advertising below the radar.

"The amount advertisers are spending is truly stunning, and much larger than most people imagine. Those who understand the true breadth of opportunity are more likely (in my humble opinion) to get a larger share than those who underestimate it," he writes.

Gary Goldhammer writes in Social Media Today that, for all the intelligent agents and algorithms pointing us to things we like, nothing beats the journalist.

He writes there are search engines that learn from us, like Google, and search engines that teach us, like journalists. For content to be found, people have to know they want or need it.

"Computers learn, people teach --and this is where journalism and the printed word can still lead," he writes.

Pick up a newspaper, he argues, and see what the intelligent search agents found for you.

Will people pay for online content? Yes, but not necessarily for news.

More details have emerged at an international newspaper industry meeting on the recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers study (finally released in PDF form here) of seven countries and their attitudes toward paying for online content.

The report finds that the abundance of content online diminishes the prospects for charging consumers for it --- the report's author told Poynter that the "market is disturbed" by so much freely available content --- but that specialized content on particular topics has a chance.

In the years ahead, consumers will spend more on the Internet, and that will make it easier to persuade them to pay for content. What's more, e-commerce is an opportunity for newspapers --- consumers suggest they'd be willing to buy a book or book a trip through the paper.

One other major point: Consumers expect to be part of the conversation with papers about content.

The "secret" meeting of U.S. newspaper executives to contemplate new revenue models was "secret" only in not Webcasting it, seemingly. From the moment it was organized by the Newspaper Association of America, it appears journalists did their journalism and figured out who, what, where, when and why.

U.S. rules are different than other countries' rules (see Slate) when it comes to antitrust and monopoly characteristics, so inviting an antitrust lawyer into the meeting had some logic behind it.

Today the Nieman Journalism Lab outlines four principles around the notion of online revenue and firewalls. It's a good companion piece to the mysterious ones involving the meeting. It asserts:

1. Firewalls imperil media value.
2. Firewalls protect print but aren't necessarily aimed at generating revenue.
3. Firewalls aren't necessary binary options of yes or no, but perhaps options within larger offerings.
4. Firewalls might be the future of newspapers but not necessarily news.

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post writes one of those on-the-one-hand, on-the-other hand reviews of the effectiveness of Twitter within journalism for the American Journalism Review.

He ponders the implications for the craft of the micro-blogging, messaging service and boils it down to two key questions: is there a business model within Twitter? Does it have staying power?

Before he does so, though, he seems to get a positive message from a variety of journalists and their managers about the tool Twitter is and he accepts it can be a serious method of gathering and distributing.

Like others, he finds it very noisy and hard to filter. But his principal conclusion is that it's likely helpful, just not in wide use yet.

Rupert Murdoch, arguably the world's unrivaled press baron, asserts newspapers will make money in the future through advertising and subscriptions. They'll perhaps not be printed on paper, but supplied through a mobile device or panel, updated often.

But in his interview with Fox Business (video here, unfortunately not embeddable), he muses that free content won't exist. It'll be paid for in some respect.

Microsoft this week announced its new "decision engine" called Bing. It's a challenge to Google and the promotional video --- knowing that all promotional videos feel this way --- is impressive. Some early testers like John Batelle have come away impressed.

Today, though, Google announced Google Wave, an integration of communication devices and services, available later this year. It seems to me it's a challenge to Windows, although that's shortchanging its ambition. Mashable is impressed.

Whatever the outcome, let's assume it's good for the consumer.

Associated Press has generated a lengthy newsfeature on the debate involving whether it's smart to charge for online news. AP itself is in the midst of testy discussions with search engines like Google and Yahoo and with the blogosphere over their use of AP material.

Given AP's recent aggression toward those who clip too much of its dispatches, let me suggest you follow the link here and have a look.

There is very little new ground covered, but it does end up suggesting that niche material has the best opportunity for monetization. That said, it also quotes those who doubt newspapers are sufficiently savvy to identify and milk those niches.

Social media blogger and advisor Chris Brogan has written one of the more provocative posts on the next steps necessary for media companies. He has framed it in the form of a manifesto.

Among his points:

1. Stories will not end. They'll be constantly reworked, portable, fluid in terms of content packaging.
2. Advertising cannot be the prime revenue source. Online booking and other revenue streams will be necessary.
3. Collaboration is key, editors and curators will rule, contributors won't necessarily be on staff.

His post has stimulated a very good debate.