Google will pay more than $80 million into a French media fund to help newspapers develop an Internet presence. The deal prevents Google from paying a share of its French revenue from links to French media articles and stories. The agreement follows a similar agreement with Belgium. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt tells us it is intended to stimulate innovation and increase revenue, but reports in the Financial Times and other publications provide another take.

Pen and paper: remember the more traditional means to jot down something in a memo notebook? Somthing other than digital might seem outdated, but Field Notes seems to find the color. Mike and Jeff point to Field Notes, which produces small notebooks, as an example of an ecommerce site building a brand for a more traditional company with copy, color and videos. The site, filed with video content, delivers a clear message. Brand-building campaigns should attract eyeballs, not necessarily links, through content and well-designed category landing pages.

As of January 2013, 26% of American adults own an e-book reader, and 31% own a tablet computer, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. For those who like to quote text in books, ebooks make it much easier to search for specific passages and content. Tablet computers and ereaders made the biggest jump in sales since late 2009, while desktop computers dipped dramatically in 2010, and made a slight uptick in the latter part of 2011 and throughout 2012. Some 45% of American adults own a smartphone as of December 2012 -- up by an increase of …

Forbes reports that another block of early employee shares valued at $9.9 billion were secured by Gentry Venture Partners. Dan Primack believes the premium was intended to stop the offering from being prevented by Twitter, which has been stingy with employee liquidity. No word on how many shares are in the block, or how well the investment firm is doing in its search for interested parties, he writes.

Documentation sent to the Federal Trade Commission gives a glimpse into the workings of Google's Glass Project and the future of search. The reports mention the frequency range and the communication structure of the signal, naming Broadcom at the heart of the radio module with support from 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE. The documents were first highlighted by Engadget.

No surprise that Google Sites rank the No. 1 visited properties with 191 million visitors, followed by Yahoo at 185 million, Microsoft with 169 million, and Facebook at 150 million, according to comScore Media Metrix. This month, the data firm expands focus to include classification of ad publishers, networks and other similar platforms. ShareThis outranked search giant Google for syndicated ad focus with 95.2% reach.