As newspapers work to improve their search experience and embrace Web search as well as on-site search, they're being exploited by a new round of automated blog spam that displays Internet drug listings right on the newspapers' websites.

This allows unscrupulous scammers to present their pitch under the "trusted information provider" brand of the newspaper. And it undoubtedly undermines the newspaper's brand.

Tribune Company and McClatchy sites in particular are being targeted. [Update: nytimes.com also is being exploited.]

WSJ reports that Google's long-rumored mobile phone is on its way to becoming a reality.

Drawing from no actual evidence whatsoever, mixed with a big helping of baseless speculation, here's what I think we'll get:

While reading coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse this morning, I was reminded how, on the Internet, all the world's media resources are just one click away, which is a boon for consumers but creates a difficult environment for producers, who now have to compete with everything at once.

For as long as there have been J-schools, professors have been telling their students to refrain from projecting their personal experiences onto the world they're covering. At least I hope that's still going on. But judging from the responses to Jeff Jarvis' "Local lives" post, a lot of people seem to be forgetting how to do that.

Jeff's point: Local is very important, full of opportunity, and very hard to do.

AP's youth-focused ASAP service is shutting down in October, E&P reports. As a tool for AP to discover how to tell stories in the 21st century, it made perfect sense. As a business proposition, I could never see a way for it to succeed.

ASAP has two parts. One is content intended for print, delivered to member newspapers. The other is an online hosted service with audio and video components.

Brands just aren't what they used to be. A brand used to be something that stood the test of time. Now a brand is still powerful in terms of defining what a product is all about, but when it comes to loyalty, fuggetaboutit. Brands today are volatile.

There hasn't been much press about it, but many websites (including this one) increasingly are under attack from zombie armies, clusters of Windows PCs that have been infected by viruses that allow them to be commanded and controlled remotely by spammers.

Typically a virus installs a "back door" on an infected PC that allows it to respond to remote commands. These commands are relayed through Internet chat systems in a chain designed to disguise the identity of the spammer.