Back when we created CBC Radio 3’s New Music Canada (in 2000) one of the key aspects was that people posting their songs to the web site would stand a good chance of getting picked up by various CBC radio programs. From the day the site launched, this was true – in fact we spun the web site into a national radio show on Saturday nights and gave local show producers access to the database so they could find local bands to play in their cities (some of them did, some didn’t, but that’s another story). That same material fuels one of Canada’s top podcasts as well as CBC Radio 3’s satellite music channel on Sirius.

I’m seeing a lot of parallels now in the blogging world – which makes perfect sense. Forward thinking publishers are finally realizing that there’s a lot of expertise in those blogs, where people are largely motivated by a deep desire to share their knowledge. Just like the record companies that started cruising the New Music Canada web site for new talent, publishers are now looking at scanning the best of the blogging world for new articles.

[Blogburst] a syndication service that delivers commentary from 600 bloggers for use by newspaper publishers is set to launch on Tuesday, further blurring the lines that divide blogs and mainstream media. read the whole story in Wired News.

Here in Vancouver, we’ve got a couple of different approaches to this. Michael Tippett’s Now Public and Paul Sullivan’s Orato.com

They have different models, but in both cases, the underlying principles are the same. This represents a huge shift in how media content is generated.

The tools for the general public remain a bit confusing, RSS should be a staple for any Internet user but still has a long way to go. But we’re getting there – and every little step forward makes it impossible to go back. And that is exciting both for content creators and consumers.