The Guardian's new community platform, n0tice, has announced new revenue sharing model that will allow users who set up their own online notice boards to share the advertising revenue generated from their board. The site allows people to create an online notice board that will link them to the rest of their local community. This board can then become a place to advertise upcoming events, buy or sell goods or just share what's going on in the neighbourhood. The service is free, but it costs approximately GBP 1 per day for the ad to be placed in a featured spot on the site, where it will be displayed to users within a one-mile radius of the advertiser's location. The price increases depending on the advertisement's geographical distribution, the size and how long it is displayed for. Users who host ads on their notice boards will now be able to claim 85 percent of the revenue generated by these advertisements, the other 15 percent going to The Guardian. The revenue can be viewed on the 'admin' tab of a user's notice board and there is an option to send all revenue directly to charity. This revenue sharing model stays close to the idea of "mutualisation" that seems to lie at the heart of The Guardian project - getting readers involved in spreading and making the news so that they benefit from being part of the newspaper's community.

The Syrian authorities have charged a US-born Syrian blogger with trying to incite sectarian strife. Razan Ghazzawi is the latest among dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers who have been detained since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began nine months ago, triggering a brutal crackdown that the UN estimates has killed more than 5,000 people and put thousands into prison. Ghazzawi, 31, had been documenting human rights abuses in recent months, and was arrested on 4 December at the border while on her way to Jordan for a conference on press freedoms. On Monday, the Syrian authorities charged her with trying to incite sectarian strife, spreading false information and weakening national sentiment. The latter charge is is often levelled against those who challenge the regime, rights activists say. The charges could carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

A Ukrainian court on Wednesday dropped a criminal case against former president Leonid Kuchma into accusations he ordered the brutal murder of critical journalist Georgy Gongadze in 2000. The Pechersky district court in the Ukrainian capital Kiev annulled the criminal probe after an appeal by the legal team of Kuchma, who was president from 1994-2005, the Interfax news agency said. Prosecutors earlier this year charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder - Ukraine's most notorious post-Soviet crime --after years of pressure from the journalist's supporters. However the legal process appeared to stall later in the year although the former president was formally questioned as a suspect and the suspected killer named Kuchma in court as the mastermind of the murder. Earlier this year, the trial opened of former interior ministry official Olexy Pukach who was arrested in July 2009 and prosecutors have said he has confessed to personally strangling Gongadze in a forest outside Kiev. In a court hearing on August 30, he accused Kuchma and three other officials including current parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn of ordering the killing. Kuchma and Lytvyn have always denied the charges. But Gongadze's supporters point to tapes recorded by a former bodyguard of Kuchma - Mykola Melnychenko - where voices alleged to be of the former president and Lytvyn are heard speaking about eliminating Gongadze. The tapes, whose publication in 2000 prompted mass protests in Ukraine, contain a voice resembling that of Kuchma suggesting to have Gongadze "kidnapped by Chechens". They were initially accepted as evidence in the case but Wednesday's ruling by judge Galina Suprun said that they were inadmissible as the recordings had been obtained by illegal means.

As a rising tide of digital dissent raises alarms in many capitals around the world, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Tuesday called on member countries to “promote and protect the global free flow of information” online. The O.E.C.D. , a group of 34 developed countries, urged policy makers to support investment in digital networks and to take a light touch on regulation, saying this was essential for promoting economic growth via the Internet. The approval of the recommendations by the O.E.C.D. council builds on a communique issued at a meeting in June, when the broad outlines of the policy were drawn up. The guidelines are not binding, but are intended to work through the power of persuasion. Also, the Internet recommendations will from now on be included among the criteria for assessing candidates for membership in the O.E.C.D., which is based in Paris. Some O.E.C.D. members’ policies have also come under scrutiny, especially measures aimed at cracking down on unauthorized sharing of digital music and other media. Campaigners for an open Internet have criticized the French approach to fighting piracy, which includes the threat of disconnecting persistent violators’ Internet connections.

Facebook launched a new suicide prevention tool on Tuesday, giving users a direct link to an online chat with counselors who can help, the company said. Friends are able to report suicidal behavior by clicking a report option next to any piece of content on the site and choosing suicidal content under the harmful behavior option, Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens said. Facebook will then email the user in distress a direct link for a private online chat with a crisis representative from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as well as the group's phone number. The new tool gives people who may not be comfortable picking up the phone a direct avenue to seek help. Users also have the ability to report suicidal behavior by going to the site's Help Center or search for suicide reporting forms. They can also use reporting links around the site. Worried friends who reported the behavior will also receive a message to say it is being addressed, Wolens said. The new suicide reporting tool will be made available to people who use Facebook in the United States and Canada.

Two veteran journalists have launched a new Florida-based web site, Florida Voices, that chronicles opinion pieces from writers around the state and aggregates editorials and columns from Florida newspapers. Rosemary Goudreau, former editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune, and Rosemary Curtiss, former publisher of Suncoast News and the Tribune’s Pasco Edition, are co-founders of the venture. “Florida Voices is a new-fashioned version of the newspaper opinion page,” Goudreau said in a press release. “We want to engage newsmakers on the issues, elevate the voices of informed people, and create a respected forum for discussing the challenges we face in Florida.” The project also will feature columns by top journalists who will write about matters facing Florida and "facilitates an online roundtable that engages informed people on the key questions facing Florida,'' the press release said. The site’s stable of columnists comes from across the state and across the political spectrum.

A Russian oligarch has fired the senior management at a leading publisher after its weekly news magazine published expletive-ridden materials insulting Vladimir Putin, reports said on Tuesday. Alisher Usmanov, the owner of the Kommersant publishing house, told the online newspaper Gazeta.ru that the pictures with anti-Putin slogans published in the Kommersant Vlast weekly magazine "bordered on petty hooliganism". Kommersant, one of Russia's most respected publishers, publishes the liberally-inclined daily newspaper of the same name, the weekly magazine Kommersant Vlast and also owns the popular Kommersant-FM radio. Gazeta.ru said the general director of the publisher's holding company Andrei Galiyev had been fired as had the editor-in-chief of Kommersant Vlast, Maxim Kovalsky. Meanwhile, the general director of the Kommersant publishing house Demyan Kudryavtsev had sent a letter of resignation, it added. The controversy was sparked by this week's issue of Kommersant Vlast devoted to the parliamentary elections earlier this month, which the opposition insists were rigged to boost Putin's party and sparked mass protests. The front cover says bluntly: "How the elections were falsified."

Promotora de Informaciones SA, Spain's largest media group by sales, said Monday its flagship newspaper El Pais will join AOL Inc. to launch a Spanish-language version of AOL's Huffington Post. Prisa, as the Spanish company is known, said that El Huffington Post will be launched in the first quarter next year, with content provided by a network of journalists who are being hired and affiliated bloggers. The deal represents an important step for Prisa, which has been expanding in Spanish-language media in the U.S. for years, seeking to re-create a successful move into Latin American markets. Prisa's results have been hit by Spain's weak economy, but El Pais remains the best-selling newspaper in the country, as well as one of the highest-profile Spanish-language outlets in the world. For Huffington Post Media Group, this will be the second launch of a non-English version and will follow the planned launch of French-language versions in France and Canada's Quebec province. This is also one of the most ambitious moves made by debt-laden Prisa since U.S. investment fund Liberty Acquisition Holdings Corp. took over the firm last year. In recent months, Prisa has been laying off stuff and cutting costs.

The European Commission has outlined plans to ensure that citizens globally have access to the internet and other communications services to protect their privacy and facilitate protests against repressive regimes. Digital Agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said on Friday ahead of the launch of the EC's No Disconnect strategy Monday that the EC must help to provide ICT technologies to people when regimes attempt to curb access to key online services. "It is clear that mobile phones, online social networks and micro-blogging sites have an incredibly important role to play [in] helping activists organise, mobilise and exercise their rights. We should support the use of those tools," she said. Kroes explained this could include providing technologies that enable dissidents to avoid being tracked by those in power. Kroes explained that this could take the form of an "internet survival pack" that provides easy-to-use software or hardware packages allowing populations to bypass censorship. However, she added that these efforts require private sector companies that develop tracking and surveillance tools to be open about the governments they sell to and to impose self-regulation.

The policy of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) will be based on freedom of expression and will make sure everyone can voice their opinions, Egypt’s new information minister said on Sunday. In a press conference at the ERTU building, Information Minister Ahmed Anis urged Egypt’s revolutionary youth to contribute to state media operations and join the ERTU board. Egyptian revolutionaries must be invested in all aspects of state-run media, Mr Anis said. State TV recently faced heavy criticism from activists and political groups who condemn its coverage of events as propagandist, and accuse it of serving the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Commenting on demands to eliminate the Information Ministry, Mr Anis said that because the ministry runs many other institutions, an alternative body would have to be created in its place. That body would have to remain committed to the legal administrative obligations of the ministry. The political leadership would be tasked with making this decision, Mr Anis said. “We are considering different options to produce high-quality media. We are looking outside of Egypt at several models, the most similar to our system being the French Audiovisual Council, whose policy is to issue directives and punish violators,” he said.

YouTube, the world's largest video sharing service, has launched a new school-friendly version of its site. YouTube For Schools promises classrooms access to educational videos without the risk of pupils being "distracted by the latest music video or cute cat". The Google-owned site has put together playlists according to subject matter and intended age level. Google said it hoped to attract schools which had previously been put off by inappropriate content on the site. Project manager Brian Truong wrote in a blog post: "We've been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or cute cat, or a video that wasn't appropriate for students. "While schools that restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that could help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece." The new service allows schools to turn on a network setting that means pupils can only access content from YouTube EDU - the site's section for education videos. Teachers within the protected network are still able to log-in and view any video. A sister site, YouTube for Teachers, gives advice on how best to use the site for learning. Among the content are videos produced by the likes of MIT and the popular TED talks.

NASA and rock-n-roll aren't words usually said in the same breath, but the space agency is looking to lure young adults to careers in science and technology with the debut of an Internet radio station. Third Rock-America's Space Station - a collaboration with RFC Media in Houston - went live online Monday featuring new rock, indie, and alternative music. The agency already has mobile applications for both iPhones and the Android smartphone platform, and will eventually make Third Rock available via those applications. NASA also used crowdsourcing to determine which songs would wake up astronauts on one of the last flights of its Space Shuttle program last year. Third Rock is now available online hosted by RFC Media's site and via NASA's website. A partnership through the Space Act Agreement allowed the station to be developed and operated at no cost to the government, according to NASA. Advertisers also are supporting the site. The station will particularly focus on emerging music that doesn't often get mainstream airplay, according to a blog post on the station's website. NASA also will use the site to broadcast updates on NASA missions and discoveries, and its partners will leverage it to fill high-tech job openings in the engineering, science and IT fields, the agency said.

After ignoring protests against election results for a week, Russia's state television took a surprise decision to cover nationwide rallies at the weekend, hinting at a lifting of taboos. The move, which seemed unthinkable just days before, was dictated by the sheer amount of protesters and discussion on the Internet as well as public commments on the rallies by the ruling tandem of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, experts said. The top-rated news show on Channel One led with the Moscow rally, while another Kremlin-controlled channel NTV reported openly that protesters believed Prime Minister Putin's ruling party had committed fraud in the polls. In previous days television turned a blind eye to hundreds of arrests at Moscow rallies, including that of charismatic opposition blogger Alexei Navalny. But when more than 50,000 people gathered opposite the Kremlin for a rally sanctioned by the authorities, it became impossible to ignore. A Kremlin source told Gazeta.ru news site that President Medvedev personally decided to run the reports.

The New York Times has launched an Election 2012 iPhone app that, unlike most newspaper apps, actually curates news not just from the NY Times, but also from a dozen other competing outlets, like Politico, the Washington Post, and the Huffington Post, according to the NiemanJournalism Lab. The news on the Election 2012 app is curated by a NY Times editor so that readers "literally don’t have to go anywhere else for your political news," the New York Times said. “Our goal is for the Election 2012 App to be the destination for people turning to their phones to stay on top of the most important campaign stories of the moment,” said Fiona Spruill, New York Times editor of emerging platforms, as quoted by Mashable. “We’re trying to make it easier for people by pairing The Times’s distinguished political coverage with a curated take on the best stories from around the Web and the social-media universe.” Still, while the app itself is free, full access to the NY Times' linked content is available only via a digital or print subscription, according to App Advice. Meanwhile, a new study from the Newspaper Association of America shows that mobile traffic for news websites and apps is up 65 percent compared with last year, according to the Knight Digital Media Center.

Google has just officially launched Schemer, a new activity recommendations portal that allows people to ‘discover new things to do.’ Schemer basically helps people discover and share things to do in the offline world. Activities, or schemes, are recommended to you based on your location and interests. There also seems to be a social component built around activities. You can find things to do, save ‘schemes for later’ and let friends know you are interested in specific schemes. The entire platform seems to be built around google+ as well. Schemer will also record all your schemes in your list of accomplishments and other schemers will be able to learn from your experiences. Over time, Schemer will recommend new schemes tailored to your interests and help you do the things you want to do. At launch, Google has teamed up with a number of media properties for schemes including Bravo, Entertainment Weeklym GeekDad / GeekMom, Idealist, IGN, Lifehacker, National Geographic, Outside, Parenting.com, Real Simple, Rolling Stone, Southern Living, Time Out, Thrillist, US Department of the Interior and Google-owned Zagat.

South China Morning Post reporter Fiona Tam (Tan Xiao-mi) won the first prize for the Asia-Pacific region in the Lorenzo Natali Journalist Prize competition. The European Commission and a seven-member grand jury awarded the prize at the ceremony last Thursday night in Brussels. Her article "Medicine's Wild East," which appeared in the South China Morning Post in May, exposed the Chinese hospitals profiting from stem cells harvested from induced abortions. The grand jury, headed by senior journalist Toby Vogel from the European Voice, said: "'Medicine's Wild East' reveals that many Chinese hospitals are cashing in on the desperation of terminally ill patients, offering unproven and fraudulent treatments based on stem cells and tissues harvested from aborted fetuses." "The expose has generated intense discussion in China's blogosphere... With the public increasingly skeptical towards such treatments in the wake of this piece, China is now being forced to consider both the implications of its often lax regulatory system and its approach to human rights in general." The Lorenzo Natali Prize, established in 1992 by the European Commission, is in its 20th year, and is awarded to journalists for outstanding reporting on human rights, democracy and development. 17 winners from all around the world were awarded the Lorenzo Natali during the award ceremony in Brussels, chosen from more than 1300 participants.

The Netherlands is allocating €6m to boost 'internet freedom' and help cyber activists in countries where the population is oppressed. The Dutch Foreign minister Uri Rosenthal announced the cash help at the end of an international summit in The Hague on internet freedom. In a final declaration at the end of the summit, 14 countries (Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Estonia, Ghana, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Britain, United States, Sweden) agreed to 'promote the freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly with respect to the Internet and connection technologies'. They also pledged to take action to work against the 'export and misappropriation of technologies for repressive ends, inappropriate requests for personal data for political purposes, and illegitimate blocking of content.' According to the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, the EU will next year set up a EUR 125m fund to support cyber activism.

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Orkut are emerging as an important tool to drive movement against corruption and bring positive change in the society, a survey in India has revealed. In a nationwide survey conducted amongst the youth of India, nearly 76 percent of youth believe that social media empowers them to bring change to the world we live in. They are convinced that causes for women and movements against corruption can be driven through this medium that is now growing as a source for information. In fact, as many as 28 percent source information from social media sites whereas around 54 percent prefer a mix of print, television and social media. The survey, 'Youth in the day and age of Social Media', conducted by India Biz News and Research Services, a non profit organisation, amongst 1,200 people between the age bracket 18-35, clearly shows a trend in which the youth feel empowered by the ability to express themselves and make their own choices. Anti-corruption has emerged as the most prominent social cause endorsed by 32 percent of the respondents.