In a statement to Reuters, company spokesman Richard Feng said “we are going to offer a job-hunting service in the next few months, but at the current stage we do not have any detailed information to disclose on this topic.” Sources have stated that MSN is in the process of pursuing local partners. The new service will be a Chinese-language job search resource, which MSN hopes will lead them in working with several international and local HR firms.

The leading Chinese job search services in China are currently powered by Monster.com and Zhaopin.com. State media places the three leading job search services as owning 35% of the market share, Reuters further reports.

According to iResearch, China’s online job market for 2006 was estimated at 1.15 billion yuan ($148.2 million), a significant leap from previous years. Doug Crets, an analyst at Media Partners Asia, said “It seems likely that MSN is becoming a media company that can compete with other media online in China,” said. “This seems like a good move, because it incorporates another revenue channel into their model. And a lucrative one.”

MSN’s China site is a split joint venture between Microsoft and Shanghai Alliance Investment, a major city investment firm run by Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Tribune Interactive manages more than 50 websites for Tribune Company papers including the Chicago Tribune and Newsday. VMIX’s technology will help manage the assimilation of user-created videos and photos, in addition to community-powered content like blogs and rating systems.

“Engaging and informing community discussion is a core part of both our heritage and future strategy,” said Tribune Interactive president Tim Landon in a statement. “VMIX technology will help us empower consumers to contribute to and participate in the content that affects them.”

With other user-generated content sharing websites like YouTube scooping up consumer-level users, VMIX has turned to white label partnerships, according to CNET columnist Greg Sandoval.

The Tribune Company has been moving more of its efforts to the web. Last week, Tribune’s LA Times announced that it would be reorganizing its newsroom to focus on delivering faster breaking news and multimedia to the LA Times website.

The financial details of the VMIX deal have not been disclosed. VMIX will handle all hosting, queuing, distribution and management of user-generated content, while the Tribune audience can gain access to content from the VMIX community as well as current VMIX partners like Fox and Warner Bros.

Also yesterday, Tribune announced its partnership with news aggregator Topix.net to provide online classified services for the Baltimore Sun next month and for 12 other papers by the end of May.

“We’re proud to be the first classified service to empower a global community to easily post and view user-created video ads,” said Grinda in a statement. “No medium is as informative and powerful as video, especially as a selling tool.”

OLX’s system will help users handle both the creation and publishing of video ads. According to comScore, traffic to online classified sites grew 47% last year. People between 25 and 34 were 23% more likely to visit an online classified site. That audience lines up with visitors to user-generated content sites, says OLX. The partnership with ViTrue is aimed at bringing that audience together in one place.

“This partnership will rejuvenate and revolutionize the online classifieds marketplace, which has remained slow to adopt new technologies since the launch of Craigslist in 1995,” added ViTrue CEO Reggie Bradford.

ViTrue has been building a user-created video ad platform since its launch last May.

“Based on extensive research regarding consumers’ needs and desires, our new campaign demonstrates how Monster ‘works’ for everyone by offering relevant, personalized tools and services,” said Vicki Godfrey, Monster’s VP of Advertising and Brand Strategy, in a statement. “The inspiring and empowering ads articulate Monster’s commitment to meeting the exclusive needs of everyone in the workforce — from the starting-outer who works to play or the seasoned executive who lives to work — and position the site as a trusted advisor and resource that can help people advance their lives at any stage, whether they are currently looking for a job or not.”

The online portion, which is part of the larger 2007 campaign created by branding communications consultancy Brand|Content, will continue to push Monster’s online presence via media buys on several major websites including MSN, Comcast.net, About.com, ESPN.com, Hoovers, iVillage and eBay. Additionally, as part of Monster’s strategic marketing agreement with Internet Broadcasting Systems, the “Monster Works for Me” message will also be delivered via its 58 affiliate news and information sites.

“AdPay enables us to monetize content and develop an entirely new revenue stream,” said Jason Gould, Inergize’s regional VP in a statement. “By combining locally relevant classifieds with a network of national goods and services, we are perfectly positioned to deliver consumers the most pertinent content. Our sites become e-commerce hubs and transactional gateways that increase traffic and improve time spent browsing, an enticing proposition for would-be advertisers.”

Over the next month, Clear Channel will begin implementing AdPay’s service, starting with two stations in Memphis this week. The ad deal will eventually cover 24 markets around the country.

AdPay combines classifieds from many different media sources, letting users search and browse classified ads without leaving the site they’re viewing. Clear Channel will gain additional traffic generated by queries on other AdPay partner sites through contextual advertising.

In February, the legal advocacy group The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit against Craigslist over more than 100 housing ads posted in Craigslist’s Chicago section that included requirements such as “Non-women of Color NEED NOT APPLY,” “African Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me so that won’t work out,” or “Requirements: Clean Godly Christian Male.”

The Fair Housing Act, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, holds newspapers and other ad publishers legally responsible for publishing discriminatory ads. But the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 protects online forums and websites from lawsuits based on ads and other information posted by users, in order to encourage free expression.

According to the ruling, Craigslist is seen legally as third-party distributer of user content, and not a publisher. However, St. Eve rejected Craigslist’s argument that the CDA grants sites like Craigslist immunity from the legal effects of all the content on the site.

“Community-based classified listings are an essential part of e-commerce,” said Tian Jian, Alibaba’s investment VP in a statement. “Besides buying and selling products online, people want a marketplace to trade services and share information about service providers. With our investment in Koubei, we’re partnering with the team that pioneered the online classified marketplace in China and opening up another channel to grow our existing e-commerce community of more than 40 million consumers and businesses in China.”

Jian is part of Alibaba’s new investment and acquisition group, which was formed to help develop emerging online businesses that can interact with Alibaba’s core e-commerce business. The exact financial terms of the investment deal were not disclosed.

Advertisers will be able to place ads on the site’s Resource Center, a section that offers job hunters advice on everything ranging from training and education to interviewing, resumes, and starting your own business. Advertisers will be able to target ads by specific page and keyword, which means that ads in the Resource Center will be able to reach individuals intent on performing a specific action.

“Offering this functionality provides more options for online advertisers who want to reach a vast audience of career-minded individuals,” said Hope Gurion, CareerBuilder’s VP of business development in a statement. “With Quigo, we are now able to create opportunities for advertisers that fit a variety of budgets and business models, as well as maximize the relevancy of advertising to our visitors.”

Advertisers will be able to see exactly where their ads are running within the CareerBuilder site. CareerBuilder.com, owned by media groups Gannet Co., Tribune and McClatchey, has more than 23 million registered users, and lists more than 1.5 million jobs. The AdSonar platform is also used by websites like ESPN.com, ABC News, The New York Times, along with sites for local newspapers.

Likewise, TPM, now independent from the rest of Monster, will be able to focus completely on its business of recruitment advertising. As per the $45 million deal, Veronis gets all of TPM’s advertising and communications business in the U.S. and Canada, which marks the end of Monster’s involvement in the recruitment advertising agency business.

“TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications played a key role in driving Monster’s early growth by encouraging its clients to leverage the power and efficiency of the Internet and thereby contributed to the broader secular shift to online recruitment,” said Monster Worldwide CEO Andrew J. McKelvey in a statement. “The sale of our business in North America is consistent with the earlier divestments of our TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications businesses in Europe and the Asia Pacific region.”

Monster will continue to focus on online recruiting and diversifying the number of web properties it operates.

In a statement, Norma Gaffin, Monster’s director of content, says, “Demand is particularly high for online marketing professionals.” The online classifieds mainstay also adds that advertising/marketing/public relations job postings on the site grew more than 18 percent in the last year.

Surprisingly, Florida dominated Monster’s listed openings chart of the top U.S. markets with the largest growth in marketing jobs over the past year, with Orlando at 147 percent, Tampa-St. Petersburg at 88 percent, and Miami at 84.