Bloggers get their own wire service, but no moolah

An all-blogger newswire service BlogBurst has signed on The San Francisco Chronicle, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News and the Austin American-Statesman, to display high-quality blog content on their web sites.

The BlogBurst syndication network allows their readers direct access to over 1,200 available blog sources.

Some blogs on Pluck Corp's BlogBurst roll include TechCrunch.com, Web 2.0 Blog, etc.

"Publishers have been looking for ways to expand the content they offer," said Eric Newman, general manager of portal solutions for Pluck. "They’ve been sort of enclosed and encapsulated just within the people they’ve hired."

Bloggers give them the "ability to expand their audience dramatically," he added.

The incentive for the nearly 1,200 bloggers signed up with the service is exposure. Newman said the company would be open to sharing advertising revenue with bloggers who pull in large amounts of traffic in the future, but warned "nobody is going to get rich off of BlogBurst at the blogger level."

Despite an often bitter rivalry between the blogosphere and mainstream news outlets -with blogs frequently accusing the press of bias and the traditional media disparaging bloggers as amateurish - both sides might be ready to reconcile as they ponder their future in a changing media landscape.

So far, blogs' dedicated feature-style content has drawn the most interest from mainstream publishers, said Newman. And at a time when the newspaper industry is making cuts, a blog dedicated to travel can seem like a cheaper alternative to running an in-house travel section.

Blogging is an attractive asset to the mainstream press as it tries to figure out how to leverage content online, said Sreenath Sreenivasan, dean of students at the Columbia School of Journalism.

But as the popularity of blogs grows, traditional media outlets need to stay focused on local content both online and off, said Angie Kucharski, vice president and station manager CBS4. "You’re silly if you don’t explore what content is out there," she said. "But as we prioritize we want to make sure we have the best local content."

Update: Dave Panos, Pluck's chief executive and co-founder, told AP 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.

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