Update: Here is the Tampa Bay Business Journal article, and Tommy's thoughts as well as Eric's.

Speaking of bad ideas....

A reporter called me a few weeks ago to ask about a new blog that he received a press release about, TampaNewsBlog. It's a product of the BlogSpotNetwork. According to their release:

“Most online news sites are a collection of only national and world news stories designed to appeal to the masses, leaving a great opportunity for the emergence of a local online news source. We have ceased this opportunity and are proud to be the first to provide local web news in the very popular blog format. Most people have an opinion about many news stories, and our news blogs will uniquely allow them to easily have their say for all to see”, said Bert L. Bill, C.O.O. Our mission is to produce the best possible web news blog, which comes from listening to our readers and subscribers, and then providing what it is they want”, he added.

Looking at their site today there is no news. However, when I first looked at their site all they were doing is scraping content from traditional publishers, i.e. local newspapers and web sites such as the Tampa Bay Business Journal and the Tampa Bay Times and posting excerpts. Around each of these excerpts they provided a comment function and Google ads.

So in other words they take other people's content and sell advertising around it. I know that traditional publishers won't be too happy about that. Maybe that's why there is no news on the site now.