Here’s this week’s digital first news for the week ending 04/20/12. This update on digital, social and mobile includes a report on how Philly.com, the online side of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, is experimenting with selling sponsored tweets. See this and more in this week’s update:

Newspapers Start To Embrace The Future                                                                                  Is the newspaper industry dying or is it “managing through a transition of consumer habits” en route to a successful new business model?

Scripps Co.: Old Media Dog Full Of New Tricks                                                                         This year, the E.W. Scripps Co. will morph from a newspaper company that owns television stations to a broadcast company that owns some newspapers.

Newspaper Readership is Still Making Headlines in Canada                                         Canadian newspapers continue to be read by nearly 8 out of 10 adults each week. They have maintained loyal readers in print and at their websites.

Newspaper readers: If you cue them, they will come                                                            Cue-routine-reward. It is nice to think that we are all rational beings, planning out every decision.

Google Rolls Out Paywall Alternative                                                                                    Google has long been accused of being a content stealer and/or a value destroyer in certain publishing circles.

ABC, Nielsen Measuring iPad Behavior                                                                                   Early results of the research into reach, duration, frequency and page views of consumers’ iPad apps and Web usage.

Apple and Facebook Should Be Terrified Of Google-Tinted Glasses                                    Google’s augmented reality eyewear is coming to disrupt your face and your business model.

Digital Reading Gains Popularity in the U.S.                                                                             Around 20 per cent of US adults have read an e-book since last year, according to an extensive new study.

USA Today Bets on Adaptive Mobile                                                                            Newspapers are experimenting with different ways of distributing content on tablets. When it comes to mobile, most publications rush to replicate their content via an app. USA Today is thinking different.

Paper Execs Buoyant On Digital Prospects                                                                 Newspapers take heart: the gloom of dropping circulation and constricting newsrooms may finally be lifting, and the light at the end of the tunnel has a digital glow.

Paywall Promos: How Far Should Newspapers Open The Door?                                             As newspapers lock content behind paywalls, marketers are opening that same content right back up again through campaigns that provide readers with temporary access for free.

Tablet Users Demand Faster Load Times                                                                         Majority of users expect websites to load on tablets at least as fast as on PCs

Has ‘digital first’ been oversold?                                                                                           Healthy snacks, ‘digital first’ and the speed of the news industry’s transformation

Pinterest leads consumers from pin to purchase                                                          Marketers may soon add Pinterest into their attribution strategy. Studies have demonstrated the social site’s ability to generate leads. Now a recent study suggests it prompts consumers to make purchases.

Plotting a smooth course for the print-to-digital transition                                                    The first years in the mobile phone area were really hard ones. Companies were cautious and skeptical in the development of mobile-optimised Web sites and portals.

Philly’s Inky To Roll Out Augmented Reality                                                                 Augmented reality platform Aurasma and The Philadelphia Inquirer have teamed up to produce an augmented reality-powered newspaper, the companies announced Tuesday at the Newspaper Association of America’s mediaXchange conference in Washington, D.C.

Columbia Daily Trib Debuts Web App For iPad                                                                        The Columbia Daily Tribune opted to create the new app using HTML5, allowing readers to download it without using Apple’s App Store.

Wait — so how many newspapers have paywalls?                                                                     Just over two weeks ago, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reported that there are roughly 150 dailies in the United States that now have some form of digital subscription service. “Dozens more papers are likely to follow in 2012,” the study’s authors wrote.

Gannett offers 594 buyouts, begins accepting offers this week                                              Jim Hopkins of the Gannett Blog is tracking the buyout offers by property, the number of employees initially offered buyouts (594 total by his count), the number the company will actually grant, and the number that have been accepted.

Philly.com begins selling sponsorship for its tweets                                                     Philly.com, the online side of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, is experimenting with selling sponsored tweets. Some standard tweets sent every day, with top stories or weather, end with a “brought to you by…” sponsor line.

Thanks for reading this week’s update.