What Little I Know…

USA Today has released a set of three widgets to, in my opinion, better aid the newspaper in getting coverage for their product.

The widgets are designed to work in such a fashion that once installed, the public can read, view, or publish elements of USA Today, on their own site or social network that they belong to. Today, the widgets cover Travel Deals, Airline Analysis and Top Stories. A more likely addition would have been something like Sports or even a Finance widget – but maybe next month.

Nonetheless, the concept is smart, not because it helps readers’ aggregate information, yet again. It is smart because if adopted by bloggers, the newspaper would be introducing its contents and brand to an audience, whom may not naturally look to USA Today, as their first news source.

Keep in mind that there are 15.5 million active blogs, with more being added each day. Technorati tracking shows that 1.5 million posts are added daily and the percentage of blogs amongst the list of the Top 100 sites has grown by over 45%, when compared to last year.

So, based on those statistics alone, it is not surprising to see USA Today’s leap to get in blogosphere. I would do it too, if I were them.

Good Blogosphere Resource: Sifry’s The State of the Blogosphere