I ran across an interesting article last week in the Start-Ups section of The New York Times. A company in Chicago will be reprinting blog posts on regular paper for free distribution in big cities. The Printed Blog will feature topics diligently covered by locals with advertising surrounding the editorial. This innovation is a perfect merging of new 2.0 philosophy and tried and true old school media. Because all of the content is “recycled” from bloggers, the weekly will be able to cut one of the biggest expenses that currently have traditional newspapers in a bind – reporters. Instead, they share some of their ad revenue with the bloggers they publish. It’s a novel idea – especially since advertisers will pay much more for print over online (it’s an even trade off, as they can take advantage of the fact that the papers will be super localized).  Whether The Printed Blog will manage to prove a success, will depend on if the public accepts the bloggers as a dependable source for news and opinion.  These sages of the online world have struggled for validation among professional editorial writers since the web first went 2.0.  Is this newspaper the next step in getting it?  And have advertisers found an effective new media channel?  Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. The first issues are scheduled to be released tomorrow in San Francisco and Chicago.

I ran across an interesting article last week in the Start-Ups section of The New York Times. A company in Chicago will be reprinting blog posts on regular paper for free distribution in big cities. The Printed Blog will feature topics diligently covered by locals with advertising surrounding the editorial.

This innovation is a perfect merging of new 2.0 philosophy and tried and true old school media. Because all of the content is “recycled” from bloggers, the weekly will be able to cut one of the biggest expenses that currently have traditional newspapers in a bind – reporters. Instead, they share some of their ad revenue with the bloggers they publish.

It’s a novel idea – especially since advertisers will pay much more for print over online (it’s an even trade off, as they can take advantage of the fact that the papers will be super localized).  Whether The Printed Blog will manage to prove a success, will depend on if the public accepts the bloggers as a dependable source for news and opinion.  These sages of the online world have struggled for validation among professional editorial writers since the web first went 2.0.  Is this newspaper the next step in getting it?  And have advertisers found an effective new media channel?  Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

The first issues are scheduled to be released tomorrow in San Francisco and Chicago.