The new free daily an Icelandic telecom is starting in Boston April 17 plans to use a lot of copy from local bloggers, according to the alt-weekly Boston Dig. BostonNow's editors say that using liberal amounts of material from local bloggers will be a refreshing change from the vast amounts of wire copy served up by that community's other free daily, Metro Boston. At first bloggers won't be paid, but money is promised after a "probationary period." Others quoted in the Boston Dig story weren't so enthusiastic. “Just when you thought there was no possible way to pay less for copy than the Metro,” said Dan Kennedy, whose teaching at Northeastern University leans heavily on new blogging and new media. “This is just taking blogger content and putting it into the paper.”
The Boston Dig article also notes that Dagsbrun, the Reykjavik-based phone company that is bankrolling BostonNow, plans to have eight to 10 more "Now" papers up and running within two years. The publisher is Russel Pergament, who helped Metro International start its Boston edition and then launched amNewYork for Tribune Co. Pergament was bought out by Tribune in September.
