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Papers' Web Sites Feature Outside Blogs

Posted on: Wednesday, 3 May 2006, 18:00 CDT

By ANICK JESDANUN

NEW YORK - The Web sites of dozens of newspapers are starting to feature outside blog postings on travel, health and other topics in a further blurring of the line separating traditional and new media.

The travel section of the San Francisco Chronicle's site, for instance, had a box in the middle Wednesday with such posts as "The Intricate Architecture of Barcelona" from the RealTravel blog. The sports section of the Austin American-Statesman site had items on the University of Texas teams.

The posts supplement the Web journals, or blogs, maintained by the newspapers' own staffs and come from Pluck Corp.'s new BlogBurst service, which collects postings from about 1,000 blogs and distributes them to newspapers, mostly for online use.

Bloggers who participate get greater exposure for their writings - but no money, for now. Newspapers get more coverage in areas for which they may not have enough reporters.

Pluck charges papers largely based on traffic - and thus ad sales - the posts help generate, and the company may one day share those revenues with the bloggers, too.

Dave Panos, Pluck's chief executive and co-founder, said the company is reviewing all blogs ahead of time to make sure they are topical and aren't apt to use offensive language. However, Pluck won't vet every post.

Newspapers concerned about quality control can opt instead for prescreened feeds - five to 10 a day in a given topic instead of dozens or hundreds.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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