Washington Post courts bloggers

Washingtonpost.com has launched a service to link advertisers and bloggers.

Called Sponsored Blogroll, the facility invites writers to register their interest in carrying advertisements on their sites. Marketers are then encouraged to select relevant destinations on which to buy space; the blogger shares advertising revenue with the newspaper company and will receive a link from a promotion box on the washingtonpost.com front page.

Launched as an experiment, the project claims three sites as launch partners and is seeking writers publishing about technology, business, health, cars and travel.

“There are some things that the Post is just not going to write about on a regular basis,” wrote Jeff Burkett, head of sales development at the online news group. “Some bloggers are open to putting advertising on their site, so why not strike deals with them and help them do that?”

The  Post previously joined the BlogBurst network to display choice headlines from writers on its website.