According to a recent report by the New York Times “several major publishers are considering charging for online content in the coming year.” Apparently, reading online content for free isn’t working.

The New York Times and other groups of popular online publishers have been thinking about charging for online content. If they decide to do so, this might change the online ads market too.

Rich Cherecwich commented about this issue: “The paid versus free debate is as old as online advertising itself, but the economic recession has given the discussion new legs. As print ad revenue dries up and display costs plummet, publishers are becoming desperate.”

Google Inc. and Baidu have been competing to be the number one search engine in China, however, it seems that the battle is over.

According to Jennifer Li, Baidu’s chief financial officer: “Baidu’s market share for search in China was about 77% in the third quarter, up from 75.6% in the second quarter.” While Google: “lost share in China, dropping to 17% in the third quarter, from about 19% in the second quarter.”

Apparently, Baidu has been dominating the market and they are incorporating new features to its platform such as search dominance on mobile phones. In the meantime, Google is second in China while Baidu dominates the market.

According to a recent press release, Limelight Networks, Inc. has announced the definitive agreement to buy EyeWonder, Inc. Executives from both companies are expecting to seal this transaction in the first half of 2010.

Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight Networks, Inc. commented: “Today, two best-in-class companies are combining to capitalize on the clear opportunity created by a macro shift of content consumption and advertising spend away from legacy channels and towards the growing world of Internet-connected devices.”

He also said about the transaction: “Limelight and EyeWonder bring together deep technical and operational skills for creating a brilliant online experience anywhere, on any device, and the ability to help advertisers and publishers monetize that experience.”

According to a recent report, 2010 looks more promising than 2009 for the online advertising industry. Maurice Levy, CEO of Pulicis Groupe, commented: “If you look at 2009, it is a year to forget.”

The effects of the recession affected this industry hard, but there’s a turnaround now and 2010 will show better results for the online advertising industry.

In 2009:”Marketers reacted to the economic slump by slashing ad budgets. Global ad spending is expected to have fallen 10% this year to $443.7 billion, with spending in the U.S. sinking 13%, according to ZenithOptimedia, a media-buying arm of Publicis.”

Hopefully, 2010 will be better and the numbers will go up.

The giant search engine has been struggling this year with the global crisis with the online advertising sales. However, one of the strategies that Google has for the coming year is to buy Yelp.

Yelp is an online community for local businesses reviews.”Google’s (GOOG) interest in the five-year-old startup underscores the value of local advertising online, a multibillion-dollar business it has so far struggled to enter.”

Google will bid to buy Yelp and they are hoping that this new strategy could work better to expand their online ads market.

The New York Media has announced its partnership with Clickable this past week. This partnership will provide users  more online opportunities.

Clickable is a pay-per-click and search marketing and with the new partnership, the New York Media will provide a new serivce “New York Connects” which it will cover various New York Media properties and advertising.

“The New York Connects service is being rolled out for advertisers in specific categories, beginning with wedding vendors and dentists, and will soon include spas, architects, home renovators and interior designers. All are set to launch in 2010.”

According to a recent press release, CBS will well online ads in-house and it will discontinue the use of third party ad networks.

CBS will use an ad-serving platform known as Madison and the CBS Interactive Ad Network will be powered by this platform.

Neil Ashe,  president of CBS Interactive said:“In a world of infinite online inventory, advertisers increasingly need to associate with premium properties that connect them to the right audiences in the right environments.”

She also commented:”The technological capabilities of Madison, combined with our size and scale, let us do even more to meet the evolving needs and expectation of our clients.”

Tiger Woods’ scandal has brought singificant online traffic these past days. Since the incident, the search term “Tiger Woods” was the “top item sending traffic to news sites”.

After the weir car accident, the web traffic started to grow and be more significant than other times.

“While it’s been clear that TV ads featuring Woods have been taken out of the air, online Tiger is helping more news publishers sell more advertising as they can have more impressions due to the web traffic increase.”

The Indian online display advertising has potential to keep growing and experts anticipate that this market will grow up to 32% in the coming months.

“India has an active internet user base of about 3.3 million, according to the IAMAI. The report is based on primary survey covering 20,000 Households, 90,000 individuals, 1000 SMEs and 500 cyber cafes countrywide.”

This year the online industry grew even more due to the fact that a lot of politicians advertised their campaigns online. “Indian National Congress also used sites like YouTube and Facebook to execute web-based social marketing campaigns.”

This past week, Yahoo launched an “advertising privacy tool intended to provide users with more information about how their datea is being used for targeted ads.”

Yahoo’s Ad Manager has commented that this tool:”will show users what interests we think they have, and also let them edit and change those interests to reflect the most up–to-date information.”

Davidson said at a Monday privacy workshop hosted by the Federal Trade Commission that “There are many people in the industry who are trying to come up with interesting new ways to inform consumers. Facebook, he said, has also been a “pioneer in making transparency tools.”

Yahoo’s new privacy tool is currently available in the United States and it will shortly be extended to Europe.