In an effort to “put web attractions in print” and reinvent notions of what a traditional newspaper provides, the new and free publication BostonNOW is grabbing up bloggers that will produce content for print.
BostonNOW is funded by an Icelandic company, Dagsbrun, that hopes to have NOW papers in eight to ten different cities in two years, with every one built from the bottom-up – or from the blog-up.
“It will be fun,” Editor-in-Chief John Wilpers told NPR. It will also be a chance for bloggers – and maybe even self-described “sloggers” who blog about their sex lives – to see their name in print and potentially reach a wider audience. Initially bloggers will comprise about 10 percent of the paper’s content, but the plan is to expand that to as much as 50 percent. Whether or not the blogs will be uninformed columns, personal diatribes or quick, informed snippets remains to be seen.
Wilpers is right, it probably will be fun. It will also be cheap. Bloggers won’t be paid, although a business model that could pay bloggers is allegedly being developed. So is this the latest in crowd sourcing? Probably. Could it be a great strategy for providing fresh, irreverent content? Maybe.
— Gary Moskowitz