This week's issue of Advertising Age reports that Advance.net's NJ.com is using Meetup.org to recruit bloggers to dig deeper into local news by drilling down to neighborhood-level coverage of soccer leagues and recycling rules. The NJ.com local blog network can be found here and the editor's invite is here. The AdAge story is not available online yet.
Even more notable, execs from parent company Advance.net tell AdAge that if things go well they will sell ads across their network of weblogs to local advertisers that can't afford Advance.net NJ dailies, such as The Newark Star-Ledger and Trenton Times.
AdAge writes:
"Advance.net's plans are another sign of how blogs are becoming entrenched in the mainstream media landscape. It helps that logorrheic buzzmachine.com blogger Jeff Jarvis is Advance.net's president and creative director."
On the NJ.com Weblogs about page, it says:
"We are starting weblogs here to bring you the best and most notable of the Web on a variety of subjects. You can start your own Weblog with no effort, no expertise, and no expense."
Participatory journalism is getting bigger everyday. Big Media is marrying Micro Media and this will have major ramifications for the PR industry, especially once they find ways to make money from their efforts. Stay tuned.
