Haven’t they read the mess newspapers are in? More money than sense? Either way, at this rate, perhaps Russia’s growing oligarch set could be a viable strategic alternative, for hard-pressed European papers, to the reality of industry change and economic malaise.

Women’s lifestyle vertical publisher Glam Media has launched its site in France, following last week’s Paris Fashion Week - despite two warnings from a French company that it owns the “Glam” trademark in the country. The French launch is the latest international expansion for Glam, which has launched in Japan,…

Weedle, a site that lets users find people who have specific skills and also pitch their own, has raised $4 million in funding. On Weedle, users create short profiles for free complete with their background, as well as the service they’re providing. They can also “vouch” for other members. Weedle…

Print publishers can’t wait for iPad to hit the streets next month, perhaps so they can once again start producing info in a similar-looking format to their core products of yesteryear. NYT’s flagship app lit the blue touch paper for iPad, Wired also got in on the act early, both…

We’ve seen a spate of investments in online shopping clubs over the last year. But most of the sites are geared to selling goods - as the market becomes crowded, can they branch out in to other verticals, like experiences? That’s what Germany’s Brands4Friends, one of the leading buying clubs,…

News aggregator Daylife will begin reselling pictures posted by users of London-based citizen-photo journalism site Demotix to create an “open image wire service.” The arrangement is an expansion of Daylife’s existing image programs. Last fall, Daylife began partnering with Getty Images—which is also an investor in Daylife—on products that lets…

Team Europe Ventures - the quartet of investors who backed StudiVZ and Amiando - is keeping the fire burning for early-stage digital ventures by announcing it is making a €6 million new seed fund to back German and European companies over the next three years. They plan to issue up…

By Mercedes Bunz: The International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) is considering making a complaint to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) over the computer firm’s request that German publisher Springer censor the naked girls on one of its iPhone apps. Springer-owned tabloid Bild’s “Shake the Bild Girl” app allows iPhone users…

—TalkTalk: The UK ISP has announced it is upgrading its broadband customers to the fastest sync speeds that their lines will support, up to 24Mbps, as a network-wide upgrade of its backhaul network that has seen Gigabit Ethernet fiber installed between all its exchanges. It is also removing peer-to-peer traffic…

Mitch Lazar, Yahoo’s European Mobile managing director, is stepping down from his post after working at the company for four and a half years. Lazar marks one of many recent departures from Yahoo’s mobile group. Over the past year-or-so, departures range from all the way at the top, like Marco…

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And, with Hulu yet to launch services outside its home market of the U.S., it’s no surprise, perhaps, that there are some sites bearing an uncanny resemblance to Hulu launching in other markets. The latest is ivi.ru, a Russian portal that…

As the interest in e-readers is finally starting to emerge, UK mag publisher Haymarket has unveiled an e-paper version of Autosport in a bid to get more overseas subscribers. It will also be available free to all current print subs through its Autosport.com site. The launch of the e-paper version…

More legal wrangles in Italy… Silvio Scaglia, the founder of online video portal Babelgum and the former CEO and founder of Italian broadband ISP Fastweb, has been named as one of 56 people issued with warrants in a money laundering investigation in Italy. Authorities allege that individuals at Fastweb and…

It’s rare that calm, measured Google (NSDQ: GOOG) uses animated language in matters of corporate strategy. But, in a blog post, it says an Italian court’s sentencing of three of its execs to suspended jail terms is “astonishing” and “outrageous”. The case, as we have reported before, concerned a video…

Is Danish newspaper Information taking the honour of being first to unveil an app for Apple’s forthcoming saviour-of-media tablet? Your eyes deceive you, sadly. What looks like an Information.dk iPad application was actually the front page of yesterday’s printed edition, whose cover story, was devoted to examining which digital paths…

—Virgin Media: After Telefonica suggested search engines pay ISPs for carrying their traffic, Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) speaks. “It’s a legitimate to question how this demand will be managed,” a spokesperson said. (Via ISPreview.co.uk.) —Onet.pl: The ISP subsidiary of Polish broadcaster TVN is launching a new VOD service called OnetVOD.…

Some consolidation in the European internet market: GoAdv, a pan-European Internet company, has bought Italian professional blog aggregator Blogosfere. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. A spokesperson for the company today tells us that it was an all-cash deal for a “lower seven-digit” sum. Blogosfere is an…

As the traditional ad agency structure struggles to reorient services to emerging markets and new media, Publicis Groupe’s digital revenues are at least heading in the right direction, albeit slowly. The Paris-based ad holding company saw digital revs rise 7.1 percent in Q4. Digital dollars now account for 22.4 percent…

The race to buy IM service ICQ from AOL (NYSE: AOL) is heating up. Last week came the news about some possible buyers: Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, which has investment in Facebook and Zynga; South African media giant Naspers, which holds a 30 percent stake in China’s Tencent;…