Deja News Launches Ad-backed Discussion Channels

Austin, TX-based Deja News Inc., the discussion network, unveiled an ad-backed new media outlet based on the contributions of millions of active Deja News discussion participants.

With a professional editorial staff now in place, Deja News said it is drawing from those discussion contributions and bringing the most entertaining and informative to the forefront. The resulting content is organized around nine newly formed discussion channels on the Deja News Web site.

Deja News provides a free, Web-based service for participating in, reading, and searching more than 50,000 Internet discussion forums, including Usenet newsgroups. Deja News claims more than 4.5 million users and 115 million page views per month.

“We are incredibly excited by the promise of our discussion channels, both for our audience and for our advertisers,” said Guy Hoffman, CEO and president of Deja News.

With more than one million articles processed from hundreds of thousands of authors on peak days, Deja News said it can leverage the knowledge of a vast community to provide in-depth coverage of an incredibly wide variety of topics. The editorial function is used by Deja News to identify and present the best community-generated content in an entertaining and informative manner.

“For Deja News’ channels we have crafted a new form of journalism. Because, through Deja News we have access to the words, thoughts and feelings of millions of people around the world, we can tap directly into that rich human vein,” said Mike Edelhart, interim executive editor at Deja News. “We have been able to compile great journalism from human commentary, rather than traditional reporting. It is like nothing ever seen before and it is wonderful.”

The nine top-level discussion channels on the Deja News site are: Arts & Entertainment, Business & Investing, Careers & Education, Computers & Science, Geography & Culture, Government & Politics, Health & Fitness, Person to Person and Sports & Recreation.

The Deja News channels will offer rich, integrated advertising and marketing sponsorships at varying levels of commitment, with options for exclusivity.