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One of the biggest and glitziest shopping malls in Europe opened last week in London, in a test of British consumers' ability to keep spending during a steep economic downturn. The shopping center, Westfield London, is also shaping up as a vast experiment in making over the humble billboard.

CBS Outdoor, a division of the CBS media conglomerate, has installed more than 100 digital advertising screens at Westfield, including a giant one covering 60 square meters, or 646 square feet.

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that the Internet search leader hopes its recently acquired advertising service DoubleClick will aid newspapers as they struggle to corral more online revenue.

"It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session at an event hosted in San Francisco by Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.

With classified revenue dwindling, the news industry must get better at tailoring articles and display advertising to online readers, several newspaper executives agreed Tuesday.

Papers must more aggressively "slice and dice" content to readers' particular interests, Leon Levitt, vice president of digital media for Cox Newspapers Inc., said during a panel discussion at the annual conference of the Newspaper Association of America.