Salon.com

A little over a year ago, Salon launched Open Salon, a standalone site and blogging platform separate from Salon proper, that allowed folks to publish their writings. Over 35,000 people have since contributed to the site—some only occasionally; some frequently. Other than cross-links, the content on the two sites was kept separate.

Now Salon says it's going to start folding some of those writings into Salon proper. The new program will only apply to a handful of Open Salon writers, with editors handpicking content they think is "appropriate to the Salon brand," Salon Media Group CEO Richard Gingras told BayNewser.

The pieces will appear in Salon proper, and writers' bylines will be appended with an identifier, possibly something like "Salon Media Network," Gingras said. Unlike with Open Salon, the pieces used on Salon proper will go through Salon's editing process. Contributors will not be paid for articles placed on Salon proper but instead will share ad revenue with Salon, just as they do with Open Salon, Gingras said. That might change down the road, "depending on our ability to monetize" the content, Gingras said.

Gingras said the new program will begin in the coming weeks. It's part of a wider initiative at the company to expand its overall strategy and find new ways to cost-effectively expand its coverage and develop new voices.

"Open Salon generates about 400 articles a day," Gingras said. "Easily five percent of that would be well worthy of the Salon brand. We want to provide that opportunity to folks, for their benefit and ours."

Just in time for the holidays, Salon is going to open a store next month to sell a catalog of merchandise curated specially for its readers.

The store won't be selling Salon-branded gear like mugs and tote bags. Rather, it will feature a variety of items—like household accessories and gadgets—that the company thinks will appeal to its readers.

The addition of the store is part of a wider strategy at Salon to expand its business model, develop new revenue streams, and position itself for long-term sustainability. The Telegraph newspaper in England started doing e-commerce about two years ago, including opening a similar store called Telegraph Shop, and it now earns about a quarter of its revenue from the enterprise, says Richard Gingras, CEO of the Salon Media Group.

"Salon is a great brand," Gingras told BayNewser. "It has a crisp personality. It's not just a content brand. It's a lifestyle brand. There's a sense of values that's represented in Salon audience. That gives us an opportunity to go beyond content."

More, after the jump.

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Valleywag has updated its story about Salon layoffs, revising the number downward to six, or 20 percent of its editorial staff. The staff reduction affected three editors, one writer, one photo editor and one producer, who were let go last week.

In a memo to Gawker, Salon CEO Richard Gingras said the layoffs were aimed toward making the site "more of a true Web publication," and are pegged to an upcoming redesign.

"We are moving away from a very traditional magazine production model and becoming more of a true Web publication, with a more direct publishing system," he wrote. "Moving forward, we are investing most in the writers and creative participants who can help us continue to attract the smart, discerning readers attracted to Salon. We think this direction makes us a stronger company, and puts us in a good position to not just weather the economic storm but emerge much stronger than ever. Economic times are difficult and that necessitates change. But change is also healthy and you'll be seeing many new developments from Salon over the coming months."

Valleywag is reporting that Salon has reportedly laid off eight employees: seven editors and a writer. They have yet to receive confirmation on the account.

Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg, noteworthy in recent days for earning $335,000 in grant money for his Media Bugs project, reminisced yesterday on his Wordyard blog about the 10th anniversary of Salon's $25 million IPO.

It was, said Rosenberg, "mirage-like in its improbability."

Looking back on the heady times when a San Francisco content company could raise that kind of cash brings the modern media climate into stark relief. Salon, after all, has attempted a number of subscription models over the years, and isn't any closer to an answer about how to save journalism than the dying dailies.

One way not to do it, writes Rosenberg, is to use IPO proceeds to go on a hiring binge, even though that's exactly what the company promised investors it would do. Within a year, Salon was at 140 employees and facing several rounds of layoffs. Wrote Rosenberg: "One conclusion I've drawn from that experience for myself is: never rely on a vehicle that's moving too fast to steer."

It was just a matter of time before San Francisco's Salon weighed in regularly on the future of journalism; after all, they've tried virtually every model possible to turn quality copy into a money-maker.

Now the brand is featuring a regular column, from reporter Katharine Mieszkowski and cover editor King Kaufman. They're writing a column called, appropriately, "The Future of Journalism," and running it on Salon's blog site, Open Salon.

"We are not here to speak for Salon, to float trial balloons for Salon as it tries to rethink itself in the changing environment or to shill for Salon as it launches new features or initiatives," they write in the column's first post. "We're just here to call 'em as we -- two writers who hope to be a part of the next few decades' worth of journalism's future -- see 'em."

If the big ideas keep coming, other media will soon be paying strict attention to this space.

Kudos to San Francisco-based Salon.com's Rebecca Traister for winning one of the Women's Media Center's first annual WMC Media Awards.

The four-year-old, New York-based WMC works to make women more visible in the media. The awards honor women making a difference in the media.

Brooklyn-based Traister, who covers women in media, entertainment, and politics, was one of two writers honored in the "Online Journalism" category. Most recently, she's written about Elizabeth Edwards, Bristol Palin, and Hillary Clinton's supporters.

BayNewser has to tip our hat to Salon and Traister, given the tough competition from Slate's The XX Factor, once a blog and now its own standalone website, called DoubleX.

Other WMC Media Award honorees include Rachel Maddow, Tina Fey, and Christiane Amanpour. Official ceremonies take place June 17 in New York.