• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 12, 2005

The Cox-owned Austin American-Statesman today plans to launch a free community blogging service on its group of sites, www.statesman.com and the entertainment-centric www.austin360.com.

Jim Debth, the American-Statesman's Internet general manager, said the paper hopes the addition of citizen journalists will supplement coverage of large, multifaceted stories, and eventually boost site traffic as well as ad revenue.

"This is very new for us and our advertisers, so it might be a while before the blogs create real revenue," said Debth. "But from the start, we're sure this will significantly broaden coverage of big stories, and add real value for readers."

Set up by Pluck Corp.--a software start-up that recently began offering publishers blogging-related tools--the service allows readers to build content and post digital pictures around local events, sports teams, schools, news, and politics.

The Austin American-Statesman has also licensed, and is deploying, Pluck's RSS technology through its parent Cox.

Pluck's co-founder and CEO, Dave Panos, said the company is currently in discussions with several other publishers that he expects will begin hosting citizen journalists within a year. "Regular people today have in interest in joining and adding to the public discussion, so we help publishers benefit from that," Panos said. He declined to name any of the other publishers that Pluck is in discussions with.

The efficacy of American-Statesman's new platform will be put to the test later in the month during the Austin City Limits music festival, according to Debth.

"The music festival is one of the biggest events for us all year, and the hope is that the bloggers will find new and different ways to cover it, adding to the bigger story," Debth explained.

Also, beyond supplementing bigger stories, Debth said the bloggers will likely expand the reach of the paper to include, for example, coverage of random high school sporting events.

While the service will begin with twelve designated topics, including the music festival and local sports, aspiring commenters will be able to initiate new topics for debate, Debth confirmed.

The Austin American-Statesman's editorial staff, Debth added, will keep an eye on the content being added to their sites, and will prominently display what they consider worthy writing and images.

Pluck's hosted and managed blogging service, dubbed InSide, was built on technology the company acquired earlier in 2005 from EasyJournal, a third-generation community of hundreds of thousands of bloggers.