Gather Waves Ad Cash At Bloggers

Blog networks opened a lot of eyes when AOL tossed down about $25 million at Weblogs Inc, and Gather looks like an effort that wants to follow in those high-priced footsteps. News about published a story about the local startup. Gather attracted $6 million in venture capital from a pair of firms, one of which will place former New York Knick star and US Senator Bill Bradley on Gather's board of directors. Gather wants to reward bloggers with a piece of the action. Advertising revenue shared with bloggers won't be a lot at first, but should grow as more visitors become aware of the site and visit. Gather also noted "Gather Points" as a ''No longer must I accept much of my content from what I have called the Literary Industrial Complex, that group of concentrated media organizations with their small elites and self-reinforcing arbiters delivering my news and information 'top-down,' " Manzi wrote. Though Gather CEO looks to eBay as the true model for Gather (''We think of Gather as doing for user-driven content what eBay did for user-driven retail," Gerace said in the story. ''Today, the problem in the blogosphere is finding what you want."), MySpace gets cited as a model too, with Gather cast as the grown-up version of that. Naturally, some questions about Gather arose online. Paul Kedrosky, here. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") | Yahoo! My Web David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.