Almost one in three Web users are organizing the photos, blog posts and news articles they access via tags, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Just as the internet allows users to create and share their own media, it is also enabling them to organize digital material their own way, rather than relying on pre-existing formats of classifying information," states the report.

Spending on online advertising will grow 17.9% this year, dwarfing the projected 5.8% growth in overall U.S. ad spending, according to a new report by Outsell, Inc. Total, online is expected to account for around 20% of all ad dollars, Outsell reports. But before online publishers get too optimistic, they should keep in mind that Outsell includes money spent on marketers' own Web sites in the total.

YouTube is getting ready to start paying users who upload clips, according to reports this weekend out of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users," co-founder Chad Hurley said, according to press reports.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has stepped up in the month-old dispute between ABC Radio and the blogger "Spocko." In a letter dated Jan. 25, the civil liberties organization demanded that ABC retract claims that Spocko -- and his Internet service provider, 1&1 Internet -- violated ABC's copyright by posting audio files from a San Francisco station, KSFO, on his blog.

Fox appears to be taking a page from the recording industry's playbook by targeting individual users who allegedly share pirated files online.

Broadband use has proliferated in recent years and one of the main beneficiaries has turned out to be the TV industry. Nielsen Analytics reported this morning that broadband video "extends the reach of traditional TV." As TV networks have started streaming shows for viewing on PCs and video iPods, the TV audience is growing.

Ad-supported music company SpiralFrog has reportedly hit a rough patch. CEO Robin Kent, former CEO of Universal McCann Worldwide, was forced out late last year, according to CNET News. At least five other execs and three board members left in his wake, CNET reported.

As industry watchers await Yahoo's fourth quarter earnings report, due out tomorrow, brokerage house Merrill Lynch has issued another optimistic report on the company.

Aiming to give average consumers advice about money management, Yahoo today unveiled a new finance section with articles about home mortgages, taxes, college loans and the like. Previously, the Yahoo Finance section focused on stocks.</

MySpace has just been hit with four new lawsuits, brought by families of girls who allegedly were sexually abused by people they met online. "Social networking sites can lead to heinous abuse by Internet predators," an attorney representing the families told Reuters.