The Brandcast

Starting next week, another free daily publication will grace Boston, MA street corners. This is an ambitious venture, as Boston currently has a plethora of free publications, including one very successful free daily, the Boston Metro. This brand new paper, entitled BostonNOW, is promising to revamp the newspaper industry through giving the content back to the people, so to speak.

In an innovative move that is causing quite a stir among publishers and journalists alike, BostonNOW is handling over the majority of its editorial content to bloggers. The pre-requisites to blog? Not many, as long as a person can write clear, relevant articles. And the pay for this bloggers? To start, nada - though publishers assure that frequent bloggers for the paper will eventually get compensation of some kind. Even the idea of “Letters to the Editor” has been turned on its ear. Want to put your two cents in to the paper? Join their editorial meetings, which will be webcasted live for all who care to participate.

Knowing that people are shunning the traditional paper and going online for news instead, BostonNOW is opting to follow this path, rather than trying to change consumer habits. Each page of editorial within the new publication will feature a number of brief (150-200 word) blog segments, which will drive people to the BostonNOW website to read these pieces in detail. It is here that the blog “segments” are expanded, and readers will be able to comment on each and every story. The print aspect to this venture truly acts the traffic driver to the site, a supplement that is used to engage and direct readers online.

BostonNOW will rise or fall based on whether readers are willing to cross the intersection of the traditional newspaper and the blogosphere. Given the way that blogging has transformed how the human word is published, this may indeed by a natural next step, as BostonNOW publishers are hoping. Boston is certainly the right environment for this test, given its large student/Millennial population and its presence within the technology sector. I must admit, however, that there is a side of me (primary the English major side) that questions how successful this may be. While blogging is of obvious interest to me, I wonder how open-minded I would be in terms of receiving my news, even a portion of it, from the public at large rather than skilled journalists. Will this news have the same impact? Would it be enough of an impact for me to switch my daily online news routine? This is similar to my feelings regarding Wikipedia - great concept, but lacking a bit in validity at the moment.
Nonetheless, BostonNOW will be something to watch. And this very concept could arrive soon in a city near you - the publication’s parent company, Iceland-based Dagsbrun, aims to have up to ten more NOW papers/sites up and running in the next two years. Stay tuned!