US newspapers are starting to notice the traffic a link from a prominent blogger is good for business.
The discussion about blogs and big media has been going on for a few years now. When I first started blogging I recall the online buzz and a specific legal battle over ‘deep linking.’

Now newspapers are changing their tune. The Online Journalism Review looks at the Wall Street Journal’s decision to provide a story a day outside ‘the subscription wall.’

“Many traditional journalists have come to see blogging as an either-or proposition — you’re either a blogger or you’re a conventional reporter or columnist,” Grueskin told me via e-mail. “I see blogging as a nascent phenomenon that is a threat to journalism only to editors who treat it as such. I think the key is finding ways in which we can each do what we’re best at, and look for ways to cooperate. Truth is, bloggers depend a great deal on traditional media. But, I’m coming to find, we can depend on them.”

If you think it’s all about love and kindness, think again. Grueskin says traffic generated from blogs to the free features has been “substantial” for compelling stories. While he couldn’t be specific about numbers, Grueskin said the links from blogs sometimes rivaled the traffic generated by links in Yahoo Finance.

I don’t know if you’ve been pitched to yet, but I have.
As long as it isn’t overwhelming I’ll tolerate the approach and weigh it out.
Living in Canada, and having a middle size blog I’ll be able to avoid the the media/corporate rush that many bloggers in the states will experience.
And it will get rather circular.

If you want to really get your brain knotted up, consider this new conundrum: PR people themselves have started to write blogs about their profession, and are now getting PR pitches from outlets they might also be pitching. Steve Rubel, vice president of PR firm CooperKatz who also pens the Micropersuasion blog, will not write about clients on his blog, but he does receive pitches regularly from journalists.

“There are some PR people who pitch me stories,” Rubel said. “But it’s still mainly the journalists themselves who are pitching me. And that’s a tough situation, because as a PR professional, you don’t want to upset a journalist who you also want to pitch your own clients to. You never want to burn your bridges with a journalist.”

If you imagine a world with analysts and PR people running their own blogs, then the source/journalist relationship could well be transformed into something else. Perhaps journalists could be left pointing to comments of analyst bloggers rather than just interviewing them for quotes. And journalists pitching their own stories to bloggers is a way for them to see life from the “dark side,” public relations.

It’s already in place. There are professional bloggers. Andrew Sullivan is a professional pundit who makes a good living off his articles and his blog during his yearly pledge week. Other bloggers make money teaching corporations and media about blogs. Some make money studying blogs and organizing speaking engagements at blog conferences.
So, what happens when bloggers that supply good tips or information to media start asking for payment for stringing? Will they be passed up for a blogger who will give the information for free? Will battles break out?
I think some of the key, economically compensated bloggers could be co-opted in the corporate push to use blogs, just like they run the risk of being used by spin doctors in the political arena.

Microsoft blogs
MSN is launching it’sblog platform next week in Japan. It expects to have a million blogs within the year.

Microsoft said its new service, which enables blog writers to update their entries and visitors to have access to blog sites from mobile phones, not just PCs, was well suited to Japan, where nearly 90 percent of cell phones have Internet capability.

In addition, nearly nine out of 10 households in Japan have wired or wireless Internet access, making it one of the most Web-enabled nations in the world, according to the Telecommunications Ministry.

For now, like most blog platforms, the MSN platform will be free. Like Google, it will raise it’s revenue for its service with ads, and may start charging if blogs use more services such as more bandwidth. The ‘may start charging’ seems to me to be a given. Microsoft is a company out to make money, and smaller designers and technicans providing blog platforms may be pushed right out of what is/was a grass roots medium.