As you have probably heard by now, the EFF has convinced the U.S. copyright office to grant exemptions to the DMCA, which mean that users of phones like the iPhone can jailbreak them. While it may be legal to do so, Apple still doesn't want you to.

Leander Kahney at Cult of Mac received this statement from Apple on the matter:

"Apple's goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we've said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."

Kahney also speculates that now that jailbreaking is officially legal, we may see a "cottage industry" of unofficial app stores pop up. That could be interesting, particularly since Apple is notorious for being very strict with the apps it allows in the App Store.

ComputerWorld asks if it is now legal to start a business around jailbreaking phones. Mitch Wagner writes, "Would it now be legal to start a business jailbreaking iPhones for other people? Could you legally buy iPhones from Apple, jailbreak them, and then sell them? weaKnees does just that kind of business for DVRs, it sells TiVos hacked to include larger hard drives than the manufacturer standard. We've had one of their hacked TiVos for three years, it works great. If weaKnees decided to branch out to selling jailbroken iPhones, would that be legal?"

Keep in mind that part of Apple's statement about violating you warranty.

Wolfram Alpha told WebProNews today it has released beta versions of Wolfram Alpha Widgets and Widget Builder to allow users to create and share widgets on their blog or website.

"Widgets are the next step in our goal of making Wolfram Alpha ubiquitous--available to everyone, everywhere," said Barak Berkowitz, Managing Director, Wolfram Alpha.

 

 

"With widgets you get a brand new way to experience the power of Wolfram Alpha and share it with your readers and friends. By putting the massive data repository and computational capability of Wolfram Alpha in everyone's hands, we fully expect to be surprised and impressed by the innovative ways people put this power to use in their areas of interest and expertise."

Wolfram Alpha widget can be built in a few steps using the drag-and-drop Widget Builder.  Widgets can also be personalized, allowing users to customize the look and feel of the widget as well as the display of the results. Widgets can be created from any Wolfram Alpha query.
 

 

Despite the Chinese government's decision to renew Google's Internet Content Provider license, the company is continuing to run into trouble in that country.  The latest problem is that two of Google's authorized advertising agents have ended their relationships with the corporation.

That's in no way a good sign for Google.  Wang Xing reported that Universal Internet Media and the Xi'an Weihua Network were two out of only 25 authorized advertising agents, and they were also "the major advertising agents for Google in East and Northwest China."

The organizations must have represented a pretty significant percentage of Google's revenue stream, then, and Google was already doing a poor job of attracting advertisers compared to Baidu.

Plus, it's necessary to consider whether the exits of Universal Internet Media and the Xi-an Weihua Network will be part of a trend.  If they're successful enough partnering with another company, additional advertisers might follow their lead, either to avoid negative connotations or just pursue bigger audiences.

But Google's not completely out of allies.  Wang Xing wrote, "Cheng Yu, general manager of Zoom Interactive, a Google authorized advertising agent in Beijing, said on Monday his company will continue its partnership with Google."

So Google fans can hope that this is just an isolated incident.

Mayo Clinic said today it is launching a Center for Social Media to create broader and deeper engagement by hospitals, doctors and patients.

"Mayo Clinic believes individuals have the right and responsibility to advocate for their own health, and that it is our responsibility to help them use social media tools to get the best information, connect with providers and with each other, and inspire healthy choices," said Mayo Clinic president and CEO John Noseworthy, M.D.

"Through this center we intend to lead the health care community in applying these revolutionary tools to spread knowledge and encourage collaboration among providers, improving health care quality everywhere."

Features of the Center for Social Media include:

*Training for health care employees via webinars, in-person and on-site workshops and boot camps, and online curriculum.

*Consulting and coaching to help organizations align social media strategies with business goals.

*Conferences and other events to bring people together to learn from each other and share their experiences.

*Resources including toolkits, manuals, books, white papers, policies and guidelines.

"Health care has lagged behind other industries in applying social media tools," says Lee Aase, one of the leaders of the new center.

"Social media interest and activity among hospitals and health care professionals has grown remarkably, though, with the number of hospital Twitter accounts, for example, doubling in the last year."

In addition to reaching out, the center staff will work with Mayo Clinic colleagues to find new ways to apply social media tools throughout the Mayo system.

"We see immense opportunities to use internal social networking tools for collaboration among our employees to improve patient care, education, research and administration," said Aase.

"As we find new applications, we plan to conduct research into their effects so we can measure any cost savings, efficiency gains and improved effectiveness. And when we do, we'll be sharing those findings externally to help the whole health system improve."
 

 

It's a rare person who would suggest that any online traffic report is completely accurate; most folks know stats from Hitwise, Nielsen, and the like are closer to educated guesses.  But it turns out that last month, comScore got Yahoo's June stats wrong by a significant margin, leading Yahoo to announce the problem in a press release today.

It's hard to characterize Yahoo's response as an overreaction; by its own admission, comScore really was way off the mark.  Yahoo explained that the organization "underreported Yahoo!'s U.S. page views by more than one billion and its duration metrics by more than 850 million minutes."

So now, "Based on the corrected numbers, on a month-over-month basis, Yahoo!'s U.S. page views were down 4.7 percent versus the reported 7.4 percent, and U.S. duration was down 4.3 percent versus the reported 6.4 percent."

And you can see an even more detailed breakdown below.

comScore, meanwhile, has promised that it's identified and corrected the problem behind these inaccuracies.  Yahoo has gone on the record saying that it still has confidence in comScore's figures, too.

Hopefully everything will be back to normal by the time comScore's stats for July roll in, then.

PowerReviews, a provider of customer reviews for retailers and brands, has partnered with Google to share "premium user generated" product review content from client sites.

Ratings and reviews will be displayed in Google search results, Google Product Search, and Google advertising programs.

"Clearly, many consumers depend on search for shopping -- from conducting initial research to making the final purchase. Providing high quality product review content within Google gives our clients opportunities to enhance search listings, increase brand awareness and drive sales through every stage of the shopping process," said Pehr Luedtke, CEO of PowerReviews.

"With this new offering, we continue to help retailers and brands leverage their product reviews by increasing traffic and exposure from Google."

PowerReviews is giving retailers the ability to automatically feed full-text product reviews to Google, with the aim of increasing brand exposure for the retailer and offering users access to opinions from other shoppers as they do research and make purchases.

PowerReviews operates Buzzillions. Com, and works with over 1,000 retailers and brands on over 3,500 websites.
 

There's a bit of good news for Google this morning in relation to the Street View data collection clash.  The UK's Information Commissioner's Office announced that it's had a look at some of the data, and the organization is inclined to believe that no harm will come of Google's mistake.

It's important to note that the ICO, which is an independent authority, didn't analyze every scrap of information, so this doesn't count as conclusive proof that only random 1s and 0s were collected.  Also, the ICO didn't in any way argue that it was okay for Google to record the data.

Still, the ICO told Dan Worth, "On the basis of the samples we saw we are satisfied so far that it is unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data. . . .  There is also no evidence as yet that the data captured by Google has caused or could cause any individual detriment."

The ICO then stated, "We will be alerting Privacy International and others who have complained to us of our position."

That counts as a significant win for Google.  Things hadn't been going too well beforehand, with more and more officials clamoring to investigate the company's practices and possibly impose penalties.  Now it's effectively been let off the hook by one inquiry.

It should be interesting to see if any other groups are willing to accept the ICO's word on this matter.

Yahoo Japan is turning to Google to power its paid and organic search engine listings. This comes as something of a surprise as Yahoo has a huge deal in place with Bing that is just getting started, but Yahoo doesn't actually own the majority of Yahoo Japan, so that version of Yahoo gets to do its own thing.

According to Kara Swisher at Boomtown who broke the news, Yahoo only holds a 35% stake in Yahoo Japan, while SoftBankCorp, a Japanese ISP and cell phone provider controls 40%. Yahoo has made the following statement on the matter:

Yahoo! Japan announced that it has chosen to implement Google as its backend algorithmic search engine and paid search infrastructure. Yahoo! Japan made this decision as an independent and separate publicly traded company, in which Yahoo! holds a 35% equity interest. We amended our agreement with Yahoo! Japan as a result of this decision, and we do not anticipate that this amendment will have a material financial impact on our revenues. We will provide support, as required by our agreement, for the search experience Yahoo! Japan has chosen for its business, and we will continue to partner closely with Yahoo! Japan in other areas including mail, messenger, mobile, our content properties and more.

This decision by Yahoo! Japan does not impact the global rollout and implementation of the Yahoo! search alliance with Microsoft, except in the Japanese market. We remain confident in our transition plans for the search alliance, are driving innovation in the user experience around search on the Yahoo! network, and continue to be committed to our alliance with Microsoft.

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Last week, Yahoo announced that it has begun testing organic and paid search listings from Microsoft, with up to 25% of its U.S. search traffic seeing Bing and adCenter results.

Yahoo will be integrating Microsoft's mobile organic and paid listings in the U.S. and Canada in the coming months. The company anticipates that U.S. and Canada organic listings in both the desktop and mobile versions of its search will be fully powered by Microsoft as early as August or September.

You may soon be able to post more than just 140 characters on Twitter. Twitter is testing a new feature that allows users to post videos and photos in their Twitter streams.

Some have spotted the feature, while most probably never had it. Twitter gave Mashable the following statement:

"We’re constantly exploring features and settings. What you saw was a small test of a potential consumption setting for inline media. We show inline media on our own iPhone and Android (Android) apps."

The description that accompanied the "Tweet Media" setting on those accounts that had access to it said, "By default, you’ll only see images and videos shared by people you’re following, and reveal those by people you’re not. Check this box to see media from everyone on Twitter."

It's unclear whether or not Twitter will go forward with making this a feature, but it would not be surprising. It may mean bad news for other third-party apps that let users post photos and video, but it wouldn't be the first time Twitter released its own functionalities that compete with its own ecosystem.
 

We've known that Ask has been working on a new version of Ask.com for months, but now it's here. Ask is placing new emphasis on the Q&A side of search, and is injecting the Q&A experience directly into the main search experience, which is what SVP of Product Management Tony Gentile tells WebProNews, sets the new Ask apart from other Q&A sites.

He says they've taken a hybrid approach, utilizing existing partnerships and new technology that's been refined over the last six to nine months, to build a new social Q&A experience that's built directly into Ask's search capabilities. When Ask doesn't immediately give you an answer (or the right answer), you can simply ask "the community."

We asked Gentile to tell us a little about who this community is. Initially, he says, they are using their existing employee base across IAC companies in a private beta. These employees are encouraged to invite their own families and friends to participate. Some journalists have been invited as well. Eventually this will expand. He says they will also implement technologies like Facebook Connect, Twitter, LinkedIn, OAuth, etc. to get users to bring in people from their own networks.

Also as a result of the social media aspect, he says profiles can lend credibility to answers. For example, if you answer a question and your LinkedIn profile is attached to it, that can show your experience in a field related to a question you have answered.

This is where the new Ask.com comes in as a potentially useful tool for businesses. Businesses may want to answer questions about products, and even create relationships with potential customers. An interesting nugget Gentile shared is that in analyzing the questions Ask receives, the majority of them are either related to "how do I spend my time?" or "how do I spend my money?"

Ask has the ability to work at the local level, as well. Gentile says they have the ability to analyze questions of both an implicit and an explicit local nature. For example, if someone asks, "what's the best burrito shop in San Francisco?", that's clearly a local question, and they can route it accordingly to people in and who have visited San Francisco.

Another type of local question, however, is something like "who's a babysitter I can trust?" That's also a local question, but it doesn't name a specific city. Ask says it has the ability to figure it out, and again, route accordingly. It calls upon signals in the user profiles. If a user gives permission, they will use location.

Here are the main features of the new Ask.com (as described by the company):

- Proprietary semantic search technologies: Finds the most relevant, quality answers across the Web, and displays them at the top of the page. No click-throughs required.

- The largest Q&A database on the Web: More than 500 million questions and answers indexed, and the ability to quickly extract Q&A pairs from hundreds of thousands of sources.

- Ask.com community: Leverages proprietary search categorization to route questions and solicit high-quality answers from community members based on their interests and areas of knowledge.

- New user interface: Improved UI makes it easy to ask and answer questions, highlights advancing and trending questions from the Ask community throughout the site.

"Ask's heritage has always been about answering questions – in fact, more people associate Ask with answering questions than any other brand in the world," says Ask.com U.S. President Doug Leeds. "As users continue to embrace the social Web, now is the perfect time to extend Ask’s technology beyond finding pages that have answers to finding people who do as well.  With 87 million monthly users and more than a decade of Q&A experience, Ask.com is uniquely positioned to answer the long tail of questions that are impossible for search engines alone to address."

It's worth noting that Google purchased Aardvark not too long ago, which also calls upon a community to answer questions, but the company's plans for the service are still somewhat unclear. It remains to be seen if that will become fully integrated with the search engine.

"As the Web becomes more conversational in nature, consumer expectations and the Web’s ability to meet those expectations are changing rapidly.  It has become natural for people to ask questions and receive answers online, and algorithmic search alone can only take that proposition so far,” says Allen Weiner, Research VP, Media Industry, Gartner Research.  "There is a huge market opportunity for companies who can get this right."

While they don't have any specific announcements yet, Ask has a roadmap for new directions in which they plan to take the new Ask.com, in terms of social and mobile. These could be key elements in just how successful this relaunch is.

Earlier today, Google made known that Google Apps for Government is available, and a representative of Berkeley Lab has now made clear that it should be popular, too.  Dr. Rosio Alvarez, Chief Information Officer at the institution, discussed the migration process in a special blog post this afternoon.

On the Official Google Enterprise Blog, Alvarez explained that Berkeley Lab is in the middle of "the first production rollout of Google Apps in the Department of Energy," and it's apparently going quite well.  Great, even.

On the financial side of things, estimates indicate that as much as $2 million may be saved over the next five years thanks to the switch.  Which is a nice sum of money that taxpayers and politicians will find difficult to ignore.

What's more, the actual people at Berkeley Lab seem to approve of the change.  In reference to Google Sites and Google Docs, Alvarez wrote about helpful features and improved collaboration, and below, you can see results from the Gmail Migration Survey.

Those are some pretty positive findings, and considering the caliber of people who work at Berkeley Lab (11 researchers have won the Nobel Prize), they make for a very strong endorsement of Google Apps.

It should be interesting to see which other government organizations show interest in Google Apps over the next few months.

The 4th season opener of the AMC show Mad Men aired last night, and in it, the main character Don Draper had an interview with a reporter from Ad Age. While the show is clearly fictional and takes place in the 60s, it seems that Ad Age has taken some issue with how it was represented as a publication.

Rance Crain has posted a spiel about what the show failed to get right (in Ad Age's eyes), and how it really was back then:

What's wrong with this picture? No. 1, we never did interviews over lunch; No. 2, we didn't take notes in shorthand; No. 3 we didn't ask cute-ass questions; and No. 4, our pictures were never bigger than our stories.

So what was it really like being a reporter for Ad Age in 1964?

I was a member of the Ad Age editorial staff in Washington, New York and Chicago in the '60s and, heaven help us, we would knock down walls to be the first to report a big account change, major product introduction or agency startup...

It continues for about ten more paragraphs. The article is met with numerous comments from readers, including some sarcastic ones. For example, one person says, "This is saying a story-telling medium (television) about a story-telling medium (advertising) might not be 'authentically' accurate. I am shocked. SHOCKED!"

While most viewers probably don't look to Mad Men for historical facts, it's understandable that Ad Age would want to make sure it is defending its reputation, particularly given the industry that the publication resides in. The critically acclaimed show does get a great deal of media attention.

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Interestingly, Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter says the show is "hardly a hit on Madison Avenue".

"Despite all the attention and the show's affluent viewership, 'Mad Men' has averaged far fewer viewers than other summer cable dramas like USA's 'Burn Notice,' and ad rates also are lower," he writes. "An average 30-second spot on first-run episodes of 'Mad Men' fetches about $20,000-$25,000, according to a recent trade media report -- not much, but it is a multiple of AMC's primetime movies."

Google is currently touting Mad Men as a great way to target viewers through Google TV Ads. Last night's episode ran only limited commercial interruption from BMW.

Digg has launched an update to its iPhone app, which comes with better Twitter and Facebook integration and improved stability.

Digg lists the following as key changes in the app:

• Logging in to, or changing accounts on, Facebook or Twitter
• Sharing stories through Facebook or Twitter without first logging in to that service
• Digging a story without first logging in to your account
• Running a search for a random string with no results
• Navigating away from a story while it is loading
• Saving a story or trying to access saved stories
• Loading more user comments related to a story

The app was originally launched in March, then received an update in April, making some stability improvements. Those apparently weren't enough, as most of the feedback Digg has received since then, has been about stability issues. We'll see if they got it right this time around.

This week Google released its new design for Image Search. The new design includes a tiled layout with instant scrolling between pages. This has already drawn some inevitable comparisons to Bing's image search, which is particularly interesting given Google's overall more Bing-like user interface launched earlier this year.

Do you think Google is improving with its Bing-like design changes? Tell us what you think.

In fact, Google has been drawing a great deal of criticism, and general observation this week regarding its increasing "Bingness". A very large percentage of the articles written this week about Google's new image search, not only make comparisons to Bing, but mention it in the title.

Some question why Google is trying to become more like Bing, while it already controls a much larger part of the search market. Others think the changes are for the better. After all, it's not like Google has changed its algorithm to match Bing's.

Still, "It seems that almost every time that Google makes an improvement in its aesthetic appeal, it looks more and more like Bing, notes  Converseon's Mike Moran. "Remember the short-lived attempt to customize the Google home page recently which has since been removed?"

Let's Look at the actual new design...

You can get up to a thousand images in one scrolling page, and the pages will have page numbers so you can keep track of where you are. This has been a feature lacking from Bing's image search (though it does at least display a number for the range currently displayed...such as 377-416 of 6,400,000 results).

Google is also providing larger thumbnail previews on the results page, with a hover pane that appears when you mouse over a thumbnail. This includes more info and other features like "similar images."

"Once you click on an image, you’re taken to a new landing page that displays a large image in context, with the website it’s hosted on visible right behind it," explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "Click anywhere outside the image, and you’re right in the original page where you can learn more about the source and context."

Finally, you can use Page Up/ Page Down to scroll through pages quickly.

Some webmasters have taken issue with Google's new image search design, complaining that it puts their ads further away from being clicked. "The main issue from a webmaster perspective, as noted in WebmasterWorld, is that when you click on an image, it doesn't take you to the site," writes Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable. "Instead, it keeps you on Google, overlays the image in large format on top of your grayed out web site."

"So any ads on your site won't be clickable after the first click from Google. Users are instructed to either go back, click on the web site with the image or click on the actual image source file," he explains. "I should note that clicking anywhere on the background web site will take you to that web site."

Remember, the new design did come with a new ad format too. The format is called (appropriately) Image Search Ads.

"These ads appear only on Google Images, and they let you include a thumbnail image alongside your lines of text," explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "We hope they’re a useful way to reach folks who are specifically looking for images."

Advertisers can review specific performance metrics for their ads on Google Images. They are priced the same as standard AdWords ads with cost-per-click pricing. More on these here.

As far as Google's recent design choices, it is pretty clear that Bing has had some kind of influence on them. The question is whether or not this is a good thing. So, I'll ask you...is it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Note: This article has been updated to reflect commentary since the launch of the new image search.

Google has introduced a new Government Edition of Google Apps. It includes all of the features of other Google Apps editions, but adds policy and security features. Google says it was designed with guidance from the federal government, as well as the Cities of Los Angeles and Orlando.

Google Apps for Government stores Gmail and Calendar data in a segregated system located in the continental United States, exclusively for government customers.

The company also announced that Google Apps is the first cloud app suite to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. government. Kripa Krishnan, Technical Program Manager on Google Apps for Government explains:

The FISMA law applies to all information systems in use by U.S. federal government agencies to help ensure they’re secure. The federal government’s General Services Administration has reviewed the documentation of our security controls and issued an authorization to operate, the official confirmation of our FISMA certification and accreditation. This review makes it easier for federal agencies to compare our security features to those of their existing systems; most agencies we have worked with have found that Google Apps provides at least equivalent, if not better, security than they have today. This means government customers can move to the cloud with confidence.

Google Apps for Government is available for any federal, state or local government in the United States.

I wonder if Google recognizes the irony of the announcement in the wake of one of the biggest government data leaks in the country's history.

Google has released Google Maps for mobile version 4.4, and this comes with a new dedicated "Places" icon designed to make it easier to find nearby places with updated Place Pages.

The icon appears on Android-powered devices in the app launcher along with all of the other apps. This way you can go right to Places from the homescreen if you choose to add it.

Michael Siliski, Product Manager for the Google Mobile Team explains:

Search for several convenient types of places with the default categories or add your own for your most frequent searches. You can also use the search bar at the top to type or speak any query. I tend to use the “coffee” search a lot, but I’ve also looked for “gas stations” on the road, “ice cream shops” in my neighborhood, and even specific places like “Chelsea Market” on a recent trip to New York.

Of course, you’ll often want to learn more before deciding where to go. With updated Place Pages, you should be able to find all you need to know about a place, whether you’re wandering into a new restaurant or deciding from your couch. In addition to photos and reviews, Place Pages now have a bunch of new details, such as prices, parking and menu links to inform your quest for the perfect steak. You'll also notice that the search results list now highlights business opening hours in addition to compass direction and distance -- consider it your late night caffeine radar.

The new version of Google Maps and the Places icon are available for devices running Android version 1.6 and higher. They can be found by searching for Google Maps in the Android Market. Blackberry users will soon get the new features.

Booyah, one of the companies gaining buzz in the check-in service space, has announced a new product check-in feature for its MyTown game/service.

With the feature, users can use their iPhone camera to scan barcodes of products to unlock points and earn virtual goods, as the company puts it, "creating a game out of real life items."

"We first made the location check-in fun," says Booyah CEO Keith Lee. "Now we're making products fun. It adds a whole new layer on top of the MyTown experience."

"It's a holy grail for marketers and brands to have their target audience actually hold their products in their hands," adds Lee. "It's as close as you will get before point of sale. Not to mention that a consumer's product check-in history is invaluable data."

This could make the whole check-in trend all the more appealing to businesses looking to sell their products. MyTown already boasts over two and a half million active users.

MyTown lets users "buy and own" their favorite real-life locations, and collect rent when other people check-in to their shops.

It's no secret that Android usage is on the rise, but Guardian points to research from GfK Retail and Technology indicating that in the UK, Android's share of the mobile market has grown from 3% in the first quarter to 13.2% in the second.

On top of that, contract market sales grew by less than 1%, while sales of Android phones increased by 350%, the firm says.

"The figures suggest an increasing number of consumers are now asking for Android handsets by name," says GfK analyst Megan Baldock. "Operating Systems are no longer simply a by-product but a key selling point in their own right."

Smartphones, or phones with "advanced operating systems" as GfK puts it, grew to 66.7% of contracts compared to 55% in the first quarter. "Growth has been continuous since 2010 began and is expected to rise consistently throughout the rest of the year; GfK's latest monthly data shows that in June, phones with advanced OS represented 73.5% of the contract market," the firm adds.

The whole iPhone antenna debacle can't be too bad for Android. Samsung has even been giving away free Android phones to disgruntled iPhone users (in the UK, as a matter of fact). Watch for tablets, Google TV and Google's App Inventor to add to Android's momentum as well.

Meebo announced today that it has added EW.com and TVGuide.com to its list of publishers implementing the Meebo Bar. The Meebo bar is designed to let readers easily connect with the people they're friends with on social networks. 

"Social connections are an increasingly important traffic source; it’s crucial for websites to take advantage of that," says Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. "The Meebo Bar makes it easy for publishers to add social functionality to their sites, and provide a persistent, open experience on multiple networks that makes sharing and chat simple, fun and engaging for users."

"The introduction of the Meebo Bar has added value for both our audience and advertisers," says Tom Kirwan, EW's National Director of Digital Sales. "The functionality increases users' engagement and interactivity with our content, while simultaneously allowing advertisers a unique opportunity to be front and center."

In the fall, Meebo plans to introduce new advertising and branding products, including an interactive ad placement with customized skins and sponsored buttons.

Meebo claims to reach a quarter of the U.S. Internet population with 52 million unique monthly visitors and 110 million worldwide. Monthly visitors have increased nearly 300% over the last 10 months, the company says.

The USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism has released a study (pdf) looking at the impact the web has on Americans, and among the nearly 200 issues explored is that of paying for online services and content.

Believe it or not, most don't want to pay. For example, the study found that 49% of respondents have used free micro-blogs like Twitter, but "zero percent" said they would be willing to pay to use them.

"Such an extreme finding that produced a zero response underscores the difficulty of getting Internet users to pay for anything that they already receive for free," said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the school.

"Twitter has no plans to charge its users, but this result illustrates, beyond any doubt, the tremendous problem of transforming free users into paying users," added Cole. "Online providers face major challenges to get customers to pay for services they now receive for free."

Obviously this is an obstacle some newspaper publishers are hoping to overcome. Last week, reports surfaced that News Corp's The Times' site visits fell to a third of what they were when it began requiring users to pay.

"Internet users can obtain content in three ways: they can steal it, or pay for it, or accept advertising on the Web pages they view," said Cole. "Users express strong negative views about online advertising, but they still prefer seeing ads as an alternative to paying for content. Consumers really want free content without advertising, but ultimately they understand that content has to be paid for -- one way or another."

WikiLeaks has also shown how far the web can go when it comes to free, important content. By making over 90,000 Afghanistan war-related documents available to the public, readers are treated to an escalating plethora of free analysis to choose from.