For the 12th straight quarter, newspaper websites saw their ad revenues rise; this time around, the increase was 22.3 percent to $750 million in Q1 compared to the same period a year ago, according to estimates from the Newspaper Association of America. For context, online made up 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad spending in Q1 compared with 5.5 percent for the same period a year ago. In general, however, sites are not pulling in enough to offset the drop in newspaper ad expenditures. Together, newspapers and their websites totaled $10.6 billion for Q1, a 4.8 percent decrease from Q106. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $9.8 billion, down 6.4 percent versus the same period a year earlier, while classified revenue fell 13.2 percent to $3.4 billion. All of which is difficult news for media companies as there have been suggestions from leading companies like NYTCO that revenues online ad growth, while still robust, is slowing. Release

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FT (via MSNBC): As the numbers imply, while online readership and revenues have contributed significantly to newspapers, the loss of a single print reader in terms of subscription and advertising revenue has to be compensated with tens of online readers. The crucial need to keep readers coming back to their sites has made it necessary to constantly revise and redesign online publications. And newspapers sites are striving to innovate, especially with the specter of slowdown. For instance, one group of news sites—including Condé Nast’s Portfolio.com, washingtonpost.com, Newsweek.com and Boston.com, just announced plans to use technology provided by search specialist Inform to aggregate news from outside sources.