The micro-blogging website Twitter is ending the year with a new round of funding, having raised $200m against a valuation of $3.7 billion. According to All Things Digital, the funding included the addition of 2 new board members and is a significant development for Twitter as it continues to upgrade its management and business model.

This new input of funding will help support Twitter's expansion plans and also indicates to bigger companies (such as Google) that it's not for sale!

In another article from Paid Content, which also reports on the Twitter funding, there is a summary of the main venture capital funding for online companies in 2010, including Yelp, LivingSocial and Groupon (which recently rejected a takeover bid from Google).

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has published an article in Scientific American that calls for continued open standards and net neutrality to protect the web as it was originally intended. This marks the 20th anniversary of the WWW next month, when the first website and browser was tested by Berners-Lee, to use the structure of the Internet in a use-friendly manner to exchange information.

The Web has now evolved into a tool that is taken for granted. However, Berners-Lee is concerned that the future of the Web is being threatened in different ways. In particular, he identifies large social-networking sites, such as Facebook, that are walling off information posted by users from the rest of the Web. He also cites wireless Internet providers who are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. And Governments that are monitoring people’s online habits and endangering important human rights.

He says that if these trends continue unchecked, then the Web could be broken into fragmented islands and users would lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites they want. He also asks why should you care? The answer is that the Web was created for public use and remains a powerful public resource on which everyone now depends. The Web is also vital to democracy, a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation.

It's an intriguing and thought-provoking article from the man who started it all, and who remains protective of the ideals of the Web, reminding users that after the first 20 years there remain challenges and threats to the future development of this medium.

The New York Times reports on the case of Pandora, the Internet radio station that has survived over 10 years of setbacks and barriers to grow the online business to the successful position it now holds. Having struggled to find investors, battling record labels over royalties and losing a large audience outside of the US due to publishing restrictions, Pandora is now attracting interest from investors and is considering to move to a public company status.

The article outlines the stages that Pandora has gone through to now be a profitable company with a bright future. It says that Pandora's success can be credited to perseverance and adaptability in the changing online market, with the support of an intensely loyal user base and a willingness to shift directions when it faced difficult times, changing from a business to consumer model, from subscription to free, and from computer to mobile (taking advantage of an iPhone app to stream Internet music to users).

With much talk recently around the future of newspapers and online content, and whether these should now starting charging users for access, Media Week has reported on some new research by Forrester in the US which found that while a minority of consumers is willing to pay for online content, not all pay models are considered equal.

Using a mail survey of just over 4,700 consumers, the responses showed that 80% said they wouldn't pay for access to online content if the publisher erects a pay wall. Then 8% of respondents said they preferred an online subscription, with the same percentage also preferring a multichannel subscription. Only 3% said they would prefer to use micropayments, which is one of the options being considered by publishers.

These results are therefore not good reading for publishers and suggest that they should keep offering free, ad-supported products to the vast majority of users who won't otherwise pay for the content, while giving those who will pay a choice of payment methods for access to premium products.

How people would want to access content online also varied, with 37% favouring a website, while smaller percentages preferred portable devices like mobile phones (14%), laptops and netbooks (11%). Another 10% favoured getting their former print publication via an emailed PDF and only 3% favored e-readers like the Kindle, although this reflects the early reach and acceptance of this new technology. Notably, 44% said they preferred none of those options!

When it comes to predicting who will pay for online content, the study found that people who are college-educated, 'technology optimists' and higher earners are more likely to pay for online newspapers than those who are unwilling to pay. Age was barely a factor in willingness to pay, however, but this did become a bigger factor amongst those who are willing to pay for online magazines.

An article from the Sydney Morning Herald considers the usage caps in the Australian broadband market which are potentially holding back Internet growth in the country and are an outdated system which is virtually non-existent in other countries.

All the main ISPs in Australia price on a monthly usage cap, which for the current web applications of social networks, online videos and photos, are outdated and restrictive. In contrast, the article takes the example of some US Internet providers suggesting 250 gigabytes-a-month limit which led to consumer outrage, despite the fact only 0.003% of US broadband users exceed that level!

The article then considers the options for changing the pricing system in Australia and the potential opportunities for new providers to break the mould. It is possible that the new management of Telstra is more open to change but it's likely to take time and be linked with the national broadband network.

An article in Business Week considers how the use of real-time websites may start driving online business in the future. Following the success of Twitter, the ubiquitous micro-blogging site, the report interviews an investor of this site along with over 20 other companies that are developing the "real-time Web" - the term used to describe the rapidly increasing number of live social activities online, from 'tweets' to status updates on Facebook, to the sharing of news content, web links, and videos.

The real-time web is being considered by some as the Internet's 'Next Big Thing'. Although this emerging sector is so new and currently unfocused in its longer-term potential, apparently many startups are now staking claims in this field and drawing interest from investors.

It is yet to be seen how these websites can turn a healthy profit and drive future growth in the web. Twitter is still exploring ways to generate revenue from its huge user base, while Facebook has struggled to turn its rising popularity into profits. However, with the growth of high-speed Internet connections, a growing number of mobile devices with full web browsers, and new technologies that enable instant transmission of messages and data, the opportunities for real-time communications are growing and now need to be applied to a profitable business model.

New research published in the US and reported by MediaPost indicates that business-to-business (B2B) media is seeing a rapid shift of advertising revenue from the traditional print channels to online platforms. The research was conducted by Outsell Inc. also shows that overall B2B revenues have decreased since 2005.

The findings show that the print share of total B2B revenue fell from 58.3% to 40% between 2003 and 2008, as online revenues jumped from 18% to 33.9%. The remaining share came from events, which stayed around a quarter of total revenues. The main period of change happened between 2005 and 2007, when print revenue declined from 53.1% to 44.1%, while online increased from 22.1% to 30.2%.

The report says that a good part of the percentage shift from print to online simply reflects diminishing print revenues and although there is a changing pattern, there is no question that the future of B2B media lies online. Infact the article says that "B2B has been confronted with the same dilemma faced by other print media, including consumer magazines and newspapers -- online, while a promising area for new revenue growth in its own right, has so far failed to offset much larger losses on the print side".

The Australian Government has announced plans to build a national broadband network as a major infrastructure project to improve Internet access and speeds for the future. As reported by The Australian, the announcement was made by Kevin Rudd, outlining the plans to create a government-owned company to develop and run the National Broadband Network.

Having rejected a number of proposals by corporate contractors to develop the network, the Government has now decided that it will make the initial investment through a joint-company with developers, but intends to sell its interest within 5 years of the network's completion, depending on market conditions and national and identity security considerations. The project will invest up to $43 billion over eight years and the Government will initially put $4.7 billion to the project. Other funding will come from private investors, including through the issue of bonds to the general public.

The network will go beyond 'fibre to the node' to provide 'fibre to the premises', which means laying real optical fibre direct to properties rather than just a down the street. According to the Government, the network will connect 90% of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with broadband services with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, 100 times faster than those currently used by many households and businesses. It will also connect all other premises in Australia with next generation wireless and satellite technologies that will deliver broadband speeds of 12 megabits per seconds.

The project will directly support up to 25,000 local jobs on average every year during the eight year construction period and work is expected to begin in July, in Tasmania. Comment on the plans and the likely outcome has been made by The Sydney Morning Herald.