Standard & Poors’ investing newsletter The Outlook says blogs are “dazzling the eyes of major media publishers as the next takeover targets.”
Blogs–especially the big-name brands such as TechCrunch, Gawker, GigaOm, Boing Boing, and the Huffington Post–appear to have attractive business models. This is good news for traditional media companies that are being marginalized online and off, and are hoping to catch up to–and cash in on–a rapidly evolving Web 2.0 world.
Standard & Poor’s equity analyst Jim Peters believes that although newspaper publishers already have a significant Web presence, incorporating blogs makes their overall media offerings more encompassing and attractive.
Naturally, some of the more progressive media companies–The Houston Chronicle, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.–are already deep into developing their own blogs. Yet, there is clearly room for more. Only two newspapers in the U.S. (that I know of) offer daily advertising columns. That could change overnight with the stroke of a pen.