Interview: Scott Meyer, President & CEO, About, Inc. — Part II: About & Blogging

[Staci D. Kramer] About is not on the verge of transforming into a massive blog network but it isn’t staying away from blogging. Scott Meyer, president and CEO of the New York Times Company subsidiary, explains: “The Times and About and the blogosphere occupy different parts of the content spectrum. If you imagine on one end you have authoritative journalism, which is the Times, the Globe and the IHT in print and online, and then on the very far, opposite end you have aggregators who aren’t publishing anything original, aggregating and helping people to navigate it. That’s the Google News and Yahoos of the world. Blogs are closer to the aggregation piece than the authoritative journalism side of the spectrum. About is in between blogs and the authoritative journalism part of the world. Blogs are part of what About does but About guides are not bloggers.”
Instead, he said, About is looking for ways to add blogs, better interaction and joining the conversations — “something we’re investing in quite heavily, which is why we brought Jeff Jarvis on board.” For instance, one guide has started tagging articles so they can be picked up by bloggers. About also has a couple of user blogs in progress.
Related: Interview: Scott Meyer, President & CEO, About, Inc. — Part I

[] The audio can be downloaded here

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