The iPhone 3G beat Motorola's Razr as the most popular mobile phone in the U.S. during the third quarter, according to the NPD Group. It was the first time a smartphone has won the top-selling consumer phone, and the first time in the past three years that the Razr has been bumped from the first place, Media Post reported Monday.

However, the iPhone's gains were not enough to make up the overall phone sales loss in the quarter, which declined by 15 percent compared to 32 million units year-over-year. Handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion, even though the average selling price was up six percent to $88.

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Omnicom Media Group (OMG) on Friday unveiled a plan to aggressively expand OMG’s Search's market coverage in Asia, which is aimed to become the largest provider of search marketing services there, Media Post reported Friday.

The plan is based on a strategic alliance with dgm, the search and affiliate marketing unit of Asia's Deal Group Media, which will help OMG’s presence in some key Asian markets.

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Online social networking giants Facebook and MySpace on Thursday announced their expansion plans at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe said his company is looking to weather the current economic storm through an ad expansion programme and its own music site, and may even launch a music player to compete with the iPod, the Guardian reported Friday.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg pointed out he does not care as much about profit rankings as his competitors do, and said his company will continue grow globally.

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Former Chief Editor of Russian magazine The New Times Raf Shakirov, announced the launch of an online initiative focusing on business-related news called Daily Online, Lenta.ru reported Friday.

Shakirov said the Web outlet will evolve by taking the current financial crisis into consideration.

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Free daily M2F is looking to expand outside Shanghai and to cover most major cities in China in the next three years, the newspaper's owner announced on its Web site.

Published Monday through Friday, M2F has a current circulation of 300,000, and is distributed to people on their way to work in public transport, entertainment locations, residential and business areas. The newspaper's slogan is “Breakfast for the Brain,” Newspaper Innovation reported.

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Google has withdrawn from a proposed search advertising agreement with Yahoo! after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would not allow the deal to go through on anti-competition grounds, the online search giant confirmed, Media Guardian reported Wednesday.

"Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo's proposed revisions to address the DoJ's concerns," Yahoo! said in a statement. "Yahoo continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court."

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The UK Newspaper Society's lawyers are calling on competition authority Ofcom and the BBC Trust to suspend a public value test as the BBC continues with plans to increase local video offerings on 65 Web sites across the United Kingdom, paidContent reported Sunday.

“The BBC Trust cannot be the chief cheerleader for the BBC, encouraging it to extend local services out of more and more taxpayers' money, at the same time as being the independent regulator determining the public value of those services and their impact on local media” David Newell, director of the Newspaper Society, stated in a press release. “Our legal advice confirms that the Trust and Ofcom are acting in an inappropriate and unlawful manner.”

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Low advertising sales and record high prices in printing paper are causing major changes in Iceland's newspaper market, namely the merger of two newspaper rivals, IceNews-Daily News reported Saturday. Publishing companies Arvakur hf. and 365 hf., formerly Dagsbrun hf., have agreed to merge newspapers Frettabladid and Morgunbladid.

Under the new contract, Frettabladid will become the freely distributed sister paper of Morgunbladid, and 24 Stundir (the current holder of that title) will merge into Morgunbladid itself, a paid-for newspaper.

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Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. will delay their online advertising partnership until U.S. regulators finish their investigation on the deal, Bloomberg reported Friday.

The U.S. Justice Department and Google came to an agreement today, but no official announcement has been made, according to a “person with knowledge of the decision,” Bloomberg reported.

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The proposed Google and Yahoo! advertising partnership is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and a European Commission, and now 11 U.S. states are doing their own investigations. Meanwhile, the deal has most recently been attacked by the Association of National Advertisers, CNBC reported Tuesday.

All parties are concerned the ad agreement, which would allow Yahoo! to run ads supplied by Google next to Yahoo! search results, violates competition laws, as it would funnel millions of dollars worth of revenue to Yahoo!, all while strengthening Google's hold on the search ad market.

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The World Association of Newspapers has asked competition authorities in Europe and North America to block an advertising agreement between Google and Yahoo on anti-competitive grounds, saying the deal would have a negative impact on the advertising revenues that the search giants provide to newspaper and other Web sites, and on the cost of paid search advertising.

The European Union's Competition Commission announced Monday it is studying the proposed advertising deal between Google and Yahoo!. Currently, the deal is limited to the United States and Canada. A deal in Europe could violate E.U. price fixing rules, as well as rules about sharing sensitive business information, Jonathan Todd, competition commission spokesman told The Los Angeles Times. The U.S. Department of Justice is also examining the deal.

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Austria daily Österreich is famous for its giveaways to new subscribers, such as iPods, coffee machines, free highway vouchers. The latest offer is a cash refund, according to Newspaper Innovation.

New subscribers for at least one-year subscription will receive €100, either in cash or on their bank account.

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Google has said it will back Project Kangaroo, which plans to launch an ad-supported Web site that will give users access to current programmes on UK television stations ITV and Channel 4, as well as all BBC programmes a week after their original air date, the Times Online reported.

The Competition Commission is investigating Kangaroo, but Google has said the online media market is already very competitive.

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Northern European newspaper group Mecom is seeing a 63 percent plunge in operating profits, due mostly to Denmark's highly competitive newspaper market, the Times Online reported Wednesday.

The group's income in the first half of the year dropped by £5 million (€6.33 million) to £3 million (€3.8 million), on advertising down 13 percent.

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Investors are interested in media companies in India because they continue to trade at high premiums, target under-advertised and geographically diversified audiences and serve audiences willing to pay for media, Salil Pitale, head of media and telecom at Enam Securities, told the Future of News event in New Delhi Friday, afaqs! reported.

Criteria for investing in Indian media falls into four major categories: predictability, sustainability, profitability and derisking, he said.

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