[image credit:laffy4k]

Today BusinessWeek and GigaOM formed a syndication partnership.  BW will be featuring content from Om Malik’s blog network every Monday.  After hearing about this, I realized that traditional media companies need blogs like us to keep them looking cool & hip.

This hypothesis is apparent when Guardian Media, a British media company acquired paidContent for over $30 million last week.  Another example is that the Washington Post inked deals with paidContent and TechCrunch to syndicate their content.  Video blogger, Loren Feldman produces videos for CNET (now owned by CBS) on a regular basis.  And then The New York Times bought out the Freakonomics blog in August 2007.

Are traditional media companies having a hard time finding talented journalists and bloggers themselves to provide the same unique content as us?  Blogging isn’t rocket science.  I’m just blogging to make money to power my own startup ideas, pay the office rent, and learn more about the industry.  What are your thoughts?  Why does traditional media need us?

The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT) has created a plugin that works as an add-on for Firefox just-in-time for the new Firefox launch.  The plugin integrates social media into the popular online version of The New York Times publication.

The first step to get the plugin is to download it from http://timespeople.nytimes.com/packages/addons/timespeople/

The second step is to register a New York Times account if you do not already have one:

The third step is to import contacts using GMail.  What I don’t like is that it gives The New York Times the ability to read who your contacts are and add them to your feed.  But what I do like is that the import process goes through the google.com domain name.  This means that the login information is not stored in any NYT databases.

Below is a sample of what the plugin tracks from your friends’ data and your data when surfing around the NYT site:

[Credit: NYT]

As you notice from the screen shot above, the plugin essentially acts in a similar fashion as the news feed on the Facebook member homepage.  TimesPeople encourages you to build friend lists and share the information based around their website.  The company stresses that this is not for social networking purposes, but only intended for information sharing.

The news feed will have RSS subscription capabilities and has a design tailored for the iPhone.  Below is how the plugin looks on an iPhone:

This is the first time we’ve endeavored to show news updated in real time, and we’re very excited to work with this first-class publication to bring you the latest and greatest news.
-Wei Luo, Tech Lead Manager of Google Earth

Imagine spinning a digital globe and tapping on a country to find out what is happening there in real-time. It’s possible with Google Earth. To see this feature, the newest version of Google Earth needs to be downloaded and the “Geographic Web” folder has to be turned on.

Here is a screen shot of Google Earth’s new feature on Texas:

Other features in new version of Google Earth includes relevant pictures provided by Panoramio and YouTube videos. The news layers are updated every 15 minutes to make sure that old news is not stuck on the digital globe.

Who knows what Google Earth will stick in here next? You know what would be fun though? A built-in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? game.

[1] Google LatLong: All the news that’s fit to print on a map: The New York Times in Google Earth by Wei Luo

I’ve got to hand it to Matt Richtel.  Richtel was able to engage a discussion by pointing out that some bloggers have suffered from cardio-related health problems due to stress.  Technology bloggers, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant died from a heart attack.  Om Malik had a heart attack and recovered, but made sure to start eliminating bad habits such as smoking and drinking lots of coffee.  Malik personally responded by writing a blog post in Miami while on vacation.

Personally, I loved Malik’s response.  Malik has turned over a new leaf.  He now associates blogging with relaxing rather than being hypercompetitive about everything.  Ever since I started enterprise blogging less than 2 years ago, I made sure that everywhere I write, I’m near a large window with a great view and that I enjoy it. 

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy blogging and make sure its not stressful when I get ready to write to the point where The Bee Gees’ Staying Alive starts playing in the background as I walk up to my computer.

“There’s no time ever — including when you’re sleeping — when you’re not worried about missing a story,” stated Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.  The whole reason why The New York Times is worried that bloggers are stressed is because they are quoting sources from someone whose only focus is to beat CNET, a public company with 2,700 employees.  TechCrunch employs about 5 editors and some interns.

Information Source:
[1] The New York Times: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop by Matt Richtel
[2] Techmeme Discussion

Federated Media Publishing, the advertising brokerage company founded by John Batelle is rumored to be raising another amount of funding.  The second round of funding is expected to be between $20-$30 million according to Stefanie Olsen, an editor at CNET.  The first round of funding was $4.5 million by JPMorgan Partners, the Omidyar Network, and The New York Times.  The Omidyar Network was founded by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay.

Federated Media also recently employed GCA Savvian Advisors to help them work investment queries.  There was a rumor floating that Federated Media was offered $100 million for a buyout, but turned it down.  Ad networks around the world are raising funds and are being acquired.  Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion and Microsoft acquired aQuantive for $6 billion.  Yahoo! and AOL have also picked up a couple of advertising companies as well.

Federated Media has been generating large sums of advertising revenue and has even paid some of their clients $1 million.  Federated Media’s network of publishers include TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOM, Digg, and BoingBoing.