Newspapers are hurting soooo bad, in both readership and revenues. Craigslist is killing their classified revenues, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it now looks certain that Google is getting into the act.

Classified Intelligence reports that “Google is aggressively moving to include classifieds listings in its organic search results,” requesting direct feeds of listings from various classified advertising Web sites. No big deal? Au contraire. Classified advertising is a $100 billion-plus industry worldwide. For a long time, newspapers enjoyed the lion’s share. But those days are over.

As Good Morning Silicon Valley put it, “Your search — ‘Newspaper classifieds revenue’ — did not match any documents.” (Ouch!)

Start a Google Alert for “For Sale: used printing press.”

Since I seem to be in a certain groove lately, here’s just one more post on entrepreneurship, self-employment and the “free” -lance life…

John Koten, Editor in Chief of Inc magazine, says there’s a deep-rooted hunger to be an entrepreneur… and to apply creativity to business. Koten called these urges key factors in our economy today. A wide range of people see themselves as entrepreneurs — everyone from Martha Stewart to Snoop Dog to college kids to retiring Baby Boomers. Koten predicts a rise of the entreneurial class in America. “Entrepreneurship is a huge underexpressed force,” he says, even in large companies.

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends was in the Cleveland City Club audience when Koten made his remarks. She has a link to an mp3 podcast of the event. Worth checking out.

Congrats and bon voyage to Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey. The Aussie blogger has just quit his “real” job at a help desk and made the leap into full-time self employment, which he writes about here.

Yaro has entered the “free” world.

Of course, if you read his blog (which is well worth your time if you’re entrepreneurially inclined) , you know this young guy already is making a decent living as a blogger. With his Internet savvy and business sense, I have no doubt his plunge into FTSE (full-time self-employment) will bring him great success — and great joy.

Someone once said there are two kinds of people in the world: entrepreneurs — and those who work for one. Yaro is definitely the first type.

Welcome aboard, Yaro!

Freelancing is more than a way to make a living — it’s a way of life.

Working Today surveyed over 2,800 freelancers last spring and discovered that most are creative, independent and fiercely dedicated to their lifestyle. Their free report, The Rise of the Freelance Class, looks at how they (we) are doing. A few key findings:

• Freedom is important to freelancers. Almost all (86%) cited having a “flexible schedule” or some form of freedom (60%)—from office politics, difficult bosses, cubicles and commutes—as the primary benefits of freelancing.
• Freelancers work in the city’s key industries: advertising, publishing, film and television, technology and the arts.
• Freelancers are an emerging constituency. More than half (53%) see themselves as members of a freelancer community. 100% have voted in a national election, 87% in a state election and 83% in a local election.
• Freelancers are falling out of the social safety net. About 28% spent some portion of the last year without health insurance. Less than half (47%) save money for retirement each month.

If you’re self-employed — or considering it — you ought to check it out.

“I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.” (Mark Twain)

Twain was right. Spelling’s not important — unless you want people (customers, clients, bosses) to take you seriously. It’s not that spelling is all that important. It’s just that spelling mistakes undermine your credibility.

As a copywriter and marketing consultant, I’ve seen plenty of evidence that typos and misspellings plant little seeds of doubt in the minds of customers. These doubts can torpedo your best efforts at persuading someone to trust you. And who can blame them? If you’re not careful enough to check your spelling, how careful will you be doing your work?

YourDictionary.com has posted a helpful list of the 100 most mispelled, er, missspelled, I mean misspelled words. (Thanks, Lifehack.)

PS: Want a tool like Word’s “AutoCorrect” that works in every application — even email subject lines, etc.? Check out ActiveWords. If you’re a lousy typist like me, you’ll absolutely love it!

(No, I’m not an affiliate — just a satisfied customer. I get nothing for the recommendation.)

Web advertising continues to roar. $3 billion was spent in 2Q alone — a whopping 26% increase. 40% of that was for paid search listings, 20% for banner ads and 8% so so-called “rich” media. More here.

Most marketing makes one major mistake. It focuses too much on YOU, your company, your services, the bells and whistles on your nifty new 2006 model widget. It’s not about YOU — it’s about your customer.

Information marketing takes a more consultative approach. The main focus is on your prospect: their needs and wants, and information about how to satisfy those needs and wants.

What information should you share? Obviously, it depends on the work you do and the audience you serve. But it must have value to your target market. The higher the value of the info you share, the more they’ll value it — and you.

Old news = “So what?”
Common knowledge = “Who cares?”

My suggestion: Give away a few of your best secrets. Juicy insider info fascinates the right people (i.e., the ones who are interested in your services). Sharing valuable info drives up your credibility. It convinces potential clients there must be lots more where that came from.

But wait a minute, you’re thinking. If you give away your secrets, your hard-won knowledge, what will you have left to sell?

Well, you’re not giving away the whole store, of course. You probably couldn’t, even if you wrote an entire book. You’re just giving them a chunk of it. A taste. A free sample, just like the man selling fudge at the carnival.

It’s a fair trade. After all, your “insider information” will attract people who are interested in what you do — perhaps very interested. There’s a name for people like that: prospects!

Read more about information marketing here.