The British newspaper, The Guardian, want bloggers to become part of its Life & Style network. I have a lot of time for the Guardian. It is the only newspaper I buy on a regular basis and I admire its recent editorial stance on the UK phone-hacking scandal. But I'm not so sure about its call for bloggers. The Guardian wants to hear from "[p]rospective partners [who] will need to have traffic figures of at least five figures". This is the really interesting bit:
The first possibility is a non-commercial content-sharing model, where we swap stories. (..)What's the advantage to you, as a blogger, you ask? The Guardian site has a huge reach (..). Your content will appear on our site, which we hope will give it the showcase it deserves, and get you higher up those all-important Google rankings than you might otherwise be.
This wouldn't bring you any money, though. For that, there's a commercial possibility, where the Guardian Select team sell premium advertising across publisher blogs and sites.
So, The Guardian gets a blogger with a proven demographic readership. From a marketing point of view, that is excellent news. The blogger gets to be associated with the Guardian brand. If I read this correctly - and I may not do so, because I do not know anything about detailed textual analysis mixed with cynicism - it does sound very 2004 to me.
I think it was Ewan Spence who pointed out that some bloggers have more of a readership than some regional newspapers. Food for thought: is it worth a blogger's while to associate him/herself with a newspaper?
In other news, the podcaster from A Playful Day has responded to my reluctance to knit in public and Fridica has responded to both me and A Playful Day. I'd be interested in hearing from other people's KIP experiences - both good and bad.