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By Stefan Arnold, February 17, 2010 12:01 am

I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I did, learning from smart people … here’s my weekly review, a few days late.

In Week-old news, I look at the biggest news involving newspapers, the internet and social media from the past week.

Google buzzes into social media: Search engine and online advertising giant Google upped its commitment to social media by introducing its own messaging service, Buzz. The service had some hiccups early on, including delayed messages. Critics were generally accepting of the new service, although many people were angered by the program automatically adding e-mail lists to the less-formal, and public, network. Mashable.com talked about privacy issues and also the service’s quick growth.

The Wall Street Journal explains more here and USA Today talked more in depth about the privacy issue.

New BBC director says get on board: The Guardian reported that Peter Horrocks, the new director for BBC Global News, told reporters and staff that they were to use social media more to help produce stories, saying its use was “not discretionary.”

MediaNews says it will grow traffic behind paywall: MediaNews vice president for content development, Howard Saltz, told Poynter Online’s Steve Myers here that the paper’s use of new content, some user-generated and/or geo-located, will allow the paper to increase traffic on the Web sites of two newspapers that will be testing paywalls for the company.

McClatchy CEO says no to paywall: TheNextWeb.com reported McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt  told attendees at an advertising conference that he did not support full paywalls, saying online advertising revenue would continue to grow. The comments came just a few weeks after Editor and Publisher reported that the company would experiment with a pay model on one of its Web sites. E&P reported Pruitt as saying the company would keep tabs on the issue and be ready to follow a successful revenue model.

Quick hits: Guardian newspaper editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger talked about possible revenue streams from Apple’s upcoming iPad tablet computer. … The Wall Street Journal reported that Associated Press stories were once again back in use by Google while terms for a new licensing agreement are worked out.

Fly on the news

What do you think about Google’s Buzz and other news from the past week? Comment button above.