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The Washington Post Online launched a program to give C-list bloggers a leg up. The company launched BlogRoll, which offers ad revenue sharing and links to participating bloggers from the front page of the news publication website.

The creator of the program, Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive head Jef Burkett, admits, though, the space allotted on the front page is "the ghetto position," but that may be a temporary neighborhood.

"If the blogosphere embraces this and we see a lot of interest from quality blogs we will grow the size of the index and give it better positioning on the page," writes Burkett.

Burkett says the program has the potential of 8 million visitors seeing the links daily, giving a boost to previously unnoticed but talented bloggers, and help both WaPo and the bloggers generate advertising revenue.

At the start of the program, WaPo is asking for content related to business, health, automotive, travel, and technology. But topics could expand depending on submissions and the success of the program.

" This is a fantastic way for a newspaper to build relationships with bloggers," writes Steve Rubel. "Everybody wins."

Steve suggests Burkett tweak the program so that blogger content is aggregated on the first page, and that relevant articles produce contextual links to blogger entries.

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