I’m sure there are more, but two stories dealing with Web logs came accross my aggregator today that I found interesting. The first is from the Times and talks about Nick Denton who is trying to turn blogs into business. BloggerCon session leader Jeff Jarvis is quoted prominently. I thought this was pretty interesting:
The way Mr. Denton determines the theme of his blogs has less to do with his own personal interests than with the demands of the market, as determined by Google. He relies on Google’s AdSense program, which pays Web sites to publish text ads matched to the pages’ content, for the bulk of his revenue. As a result, he picks blog subjects based on the rate Google pays for clicks on ads in specific topic areas. Among the topics of blogs he plans to start this year are computer gaming, travel and politics.
Another story in the Des Moines Register talks about the growth of Web logs in politics, but notes that the Internet still has a way to go when it comes to being a source of political info:
A Des Moines Register poll of likely caucus participants, taken in July, found that 18 percent had gone to the Internet for political information. That’s a significant increase from October 1995, when 3 percent of likely caucus participants reported in an Iowa Poll that they had gone online for political purposes.
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