‘Sphere It’ : Added to Time.com, locates blogs on article topic

Newspapers and magazines are scrambling for ways to become more relevant to their readers which are now getting their content online. One way is to tap into the blog content.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been writting about 3 month old blog search engine Sphere and explains how it works in his post about Time.com adding ‘Sphere It’ links.

The links are prominently placed below the headlines of articles and link directly to Sphere blog search results related to the topic….Sphere It is a Sphere feature that allows users to find relevant blog content from any URL. The easiest way to use it is to install the Sphere It bookmarklet into the browser. Click it while on any web page and relevant Sphere blog search results will be brought up.

Michael gives a nice example on Time.com’s article on General Michael Hayden’s nomination to head the CIA. Click on the ‘Sphere It’ link and you get very relevant blog content.

What does this mean for lawyers and other professional service firm bloggers? Sphere is likely to get this technology deployed at more major publications. Readers of such publications not aware of blogs on the topic are going to find your blog commentary. As Michael says, “This should drive more mainstream Internet users to the blogosphere over time.’