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FT.com's blog Alphaville will stay free for the foreseeable future as it 'quite aggressively' looks at expanding its US coverage and audience, its editor, Paul Murphy has told Journalism.co.uk.

Other plans include a standalone iPhone application and increased nurturing of its community forum the Long Room . The site is considering building a 'specific iPhone app' for Alphaville, he said, as the app for FT.com

'had proved very successful'.

Although the Long Room - launched in October 2008, in which users write 'semi-private blogs' within a restricted community - has seen a strong sign-up rate, users need more help, Murphy said.

"[We] could give readers a lot more guidance and hand-holding in terms of creating their own content," he said. Developing more sponsored tables in the Long Room is also a possibility, he said. As reported last week, Alphaville will now be edited by Murphy from New York although the core team is to stay based in London - all part of its bid to create a 24-hour, global financial blog. The aim is to provide content tailored to US-time, without a significant change in style.

Forty per cent of the site's traffic already originates in the US, Murphy said: "We know there is the demand there. Me coming out here is a reaction to reader demand." Markets Live , currently held at 11am and 12pm GMT, will now also be followed by a US slot at 4pm GMT (11am EST). The '6AM Cut' email, a news briefing service for financial professionals, will also be given an American edition, with another planned for Asia.

Traffic rise and plateau pattern

The blog currently attracts half a million unique users and two million page views a month - three years after its launch. Traffic has grown with 'each multibillion takeover' and then during the crash 'with each fresh emergency', he said.

After major news events - the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the crisis at Northern Rock, for example - traffic rises, and then will plateau for a while, he said.

FT Alphaville to stay free for the foreseeable future

Despite the new developments, FT Alphaville will stay free unlike parts of its mother site , as it relies on the link-in and link-out culture, Murphy said. Additionally, it's a route for readers to the main site, FT.com, he said: "We bring quite a few readers into FT.com that might otherwise not come through the front door."

"It's been self-supporting in terms of advertising revenue from day one and there's no reason to change that. It's also important to remember that blogging is such a conversational type of journalism - you need to be free to link to other blogs and publications and them to be free to link to you."

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Written by
Judith Townend

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