Online Journalism News

theblogpaper secures partners for promotion and investment

Posted: 09/11/09 By: Laura Oliver

Email this story | Comments

Following its pre-launch edition in September, theblogpaper, a website and printed paper compiled by an online community of writers, signed up two new partners last month.

According to a statement from founders Anton Waldburg and Karl Jo Seilern, the project has received backing from John Forch, who is involved with www.blogcatalog.com, www.broowaha.com, www.bloggersunite.org.

Forch will promote theblogpaper on these sites, which are linked to a network of 300,000 bloggers, with a focus on attracting more UK bloggers to post content and comments to the site, the statement said.

The start-up has also gained support from an Austrian investment firm in the shape of Rudi Kobza of First Love Capital, which focuses on early stage financing for business start-ups in the media industry.

Kobza will be tasked with finding enough partners to support theblogpaper financially and eventually increase its circulation to 20-50,000 print editions a month from January next year.

The next editions of the paper are scheduled for 20 November and 18 December, though these will be 'beta' runs of the paper with around 8-10,000 circulated in locations around central and east London, the site said.

The project aims to build a 'news community' online. This community will contribute written and multimedia news content, which will then be ranked by other users. If an item receives more support it will be pushed into a print edition and also onto the front pages of theblogpaper.co.uk.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, in August, Waldburg said the site had attracted around 500 contributors.

Related reading on Journalism.co.uk: 'Q&A with theblogpaper.co.uk: Putting "the majority in charge" of publishing'

Got a story? Email our news team: Laura Oliver; Judith Townend or telephone +44 (0)1273 384290. You can also follow us on Twitter: @journalismnews / @LauraOliver / @JTownend.