“Blog” is an ugly word that barged into our vocabulary and before long became an indispensable component of common discourse.

We no longer notice how ugly it is. However, now that we’re used to it, it looks as if we will have to come up with a word, mellifluous or otherwise, to describe a hybrid of blog and print newspaper: Blogpaper? Blaper? Newsblog? Prog?

Call it what you will, it looks as if – er, blapers – may not only bridge the gap between printed news and Web content, but could monetize them as well. The plummeting circulation of newspapers might turn around when readers that prefer paper to screens begin buying dailies in order to read their favorite bloggers in newsprint. And bloggers, who make little or no money from their online outpourings, might share the revenue of what we would hope are surging newspaper sales.

These thoughts were inspired by Claire Cain Miller’s article in the New York Times about a start-up called The Printed Blog designed to reprint blog posts on regular paper. The paper will be distributed free, but will be financed by local advertising.

“We are trying to be the first daily newspaper comprised entirely of blogs and other user-generated content,” says Joshua Karp, the venture’s publisher.

Miller writes,

“As pay newspapers lose readers to the Internet, where they can read the same articles without charge, many free papers have held their own.

“’The free newspaper business model is still very workable,’ said David Cohen, a founder of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, a group of free weeklies south of San Francisco that was sold to Knight Ridder in 2005 and is now owned by MediaNews. ‘There’s a huge readership that wants the local news, and local businesses tend to increase their advertising in bad times because they have to capture people’s attention.’”

Here’s the link to the – er, prog? Karp hopes the idea will catch on in other cities. An idea whose time has come?

When I google “Prog” I’m asked Did You Mean Prague? And even Google seems completely stumped by “Blaper.” So it’s possible you’ve heard these terms for the first time in this space. If one of them finds its way to the Oxford English Dictionary, I expect a footnote. And if I put Prague on the map, maybe an all-expenses paid trip sponsored by the Czech chamber of commerce?

Oops. It seems Prague is already on the map. Who knew?

RC