Microsoft wants regional press hook-up

Posted by Neil Vowles on 29 July 2009 at 14:50
Tags: Media Business, New Media, Online, Regional Newspapers

MSN, Microsoft’s news and entertainment site, is seeking to link up with local newspapers to create hyperlocal news feeds that it can integrating with with its postcode-searchable maps on MSN Local.

The feeds would be linked into the site which aleady allows users to search for properties, crime rates and political information in their local areas.

Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN UK, told the Telegraph that MSN “might pay” publishers for the feeds or could come to an arrangement where hyperlinks in each story would drive traffic back to the newspaper sites.

Bale added: “We are hoping to take feeds from local news and tag every pice of information to a map. Hyper local news online has never been more important and we think this is a really interesting growth area.”