Some media stories of note for Monday, April 29, 2013:

A study by Quantum Media Holdings suggests Americans are spending 16 minutes per hour attached to social media, Australians are spending 14 minutes and those in U.K. 13 minutes. The principal driver in this data is smartphone use. Fox Business reports that Quantum says a lot of the time spent is "ego-centric" generation of photos and messages about personal activities, more so than browsing content.

For years publishers have been pushing for Google to pay royalties for their content. But The Wrap notes another such advocate has entered the fray and he is no shrinking violet. Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein says Google's failure to pay creators for content amounts to stealing, and that technologist are earning billions while artists are struggling. He noted YouTube's dominance as a video site, expressed concern about the fate of newspapers and magazines in this environment, and encouraged Congress to pay a law that would generate royalties for creators.

A Canadian lawsuit stands to test the boundaries of libel in online comments. The former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Brian Burke, has filed a lawsuit against 18 anonymous commenters who posted what he says are libels about him. He intends to unmask the commenters and pursue legal action against them. The Globe and Mail reports that privacy law experts believe it is only a matter of time before other such suits test the limits of what sites and message boards can legally post.

Some media stories of note for Tuesday, February 26, 2013:

Is there some science behind successful Tweeting? Seems so. Poynter's Jeff Sonderman writes about a Georgia Institute of Technology study that suggests negative Tweets are largely a turn-off in securing a larger audience. Given that Twitter is a weak-tie platform, the more negative Tweets tend to make unfamiliar people uncomfortable. Another conclusion: Feed those followers information, not your eating habits.

There are three different takes arguing the necessity of media change.

Kylie Davis, the national real estate editor for News Corp. in Australia, challenges print media to embrace content marketing or face its wrath -- the departure of advertisers who will become direct competitors. She writes for the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) blog that it can deliver a targeted audience, take time away from traditional media, and might even be better in some cases as storytellers. "Choosing to ignore it or claim it is not relevant will end only in shouts and tears."

Mark Challinor, the director of mobile for the Telegraph Group in London, says print will remain the cornerstone of his business. Challinor, writing for the INMA blog, suggests print will be integrated with mobile as a vehicle to cut through the clutter and deliver audiences to advertisers with rich content.

David Lieberman, the executive editor of Deadline New York, writes about an analyst's view that big media companies are taking the rise of mobile streaming far too lightly.  Laura Martin of Needham & Co. says a new wave of streaming tech companies are sneaking up on the traditional networks and outlets with short-term premium videos designed to attract younger viewers of tablets and smartphones.

There are many times you want to share a video on YouTube but not truly share a video on YouTube. Now the service has introduced an option to post "unlisted" video.

By "unlisted" it means available only to those who know a dedicated URL, meaning no public display, no channel availability, and no search engine results. It also means access to anyone you choose, not just someone with a YouTube account.

While Mashable speculates this option will be very valuable for education purposes and for non-profits, it's hard to believe it wouldn't also be useful for services looking to distribute video selectively to certain audiences as a premium or exclusive offering.

The latest monthly figures for video views in the United States suggest Google continues to be the dominant provider.

The data from comScore Inc. says Americans watched 31.2 billion videos online in the month of March, with Google sites like YouTube garnering 42 per cent of the total, or 13 billion. YouTube reached three of four viewers and Google had 136 million unique visitors to video in the month.

Hulu was a distant second at 1.1 billion views.

The data indicates some 180 million Americans (or 85 per cent of the Internet audience) viewed an average of 173 videos in March.

In his latest post for the Online Journalism Review, Robert Niles suggests newsrooms reallocate the sudden attention on the iPad and devote some resources to a video-on-demand strategy.

The future of video delivery won't be cable or satellite but the video-on-demand services now largely provided by firms like Netflix in the U.S. or Zip in Canada. Sooner or later those delivery systems will open to wider competition and the network concept, which has lately shifted to a program-by-program concept of viewing, will become even more granular --- just as blogs have emerged from print media.

Niles sees an opening for delivering newscasts or commentator pieces directly --- and he sees a business model in there. It's time to build the pieces to pursue that work, he argues.

The boom continues for online video in the United States. The audience measurement firm comScore says 178 million Americans watched video online in December.

Some 33.2 billion videos were seen in the month. YouTube is the largest video outfit on the Web, with more than 13 billion viewed, but it was the first month in which Hulu served up more than one billion views.

The math is astounding: The 178 million watched an average of 187 videos in the month.

YouTube Direct is the dominant Google-owned video service's attempt to bridge the gap between news organizations and creators. It permits editors to obtain and assign video from so-called citizen journalists.

A handful of large organizations are testing the service, which essentially serves as a go-between.

It permits a call-out to videographers and links them to newsrooms.

The New York Times today chronicles the rise of online video and notes that even many text-oriented news sites are putting video up front to capitalize on the boom in video-related advertising.

The Times says firms expect growth of between 35 and 45 per cent in each of the next five years. Video ads are commanding higher rates, too.

News executives quoted in the story say that, with each watershed event, video becomes a more significant element for their sites. It is now expected by the user. And the ability to share video is a feature that separates online  from television.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project continues to produce solid trendsetting data. The latest suggests a continued growth in online video consumption among Americans, with a majority now watching  --- a near-doubling of the total to 62 per cent from 33 per cent in 2006.

"As the audience for online video continues to grow, a leading edge of internet users are migrating their viewing from their computer screens to their TV screens," Pew reports.

Daily use has reached 19 per cent, up from 8 per cent in 2006. Earlier this year it reported some decline in cable use, but a much smaller decline in Internet use, owing to economic conditions. Pew now believes some of those cable-cutters are watching online.

Particularly of interest for the traditional production industries is that movie and television show consumption is up to 35 per cent of the viewers from 16 per cent in 2006.