Reuters, bastions of all things news, just made it easier to add its reports to your Web page. Using an API (that would be application programming interface, duh) developers can easily build applications to use Reuters news or add it to their already existing aps.

Over at Mashable, Kristen Nicole thinks this model makes sense. "What's good about such an offering is that it is a major step towards freeing up information to an even larger extent, by offering it up to the developer community," she writes. "With this, Reuters is hoping to extend its distribution, gain some additional access to more audiences through the developer community, and really take on current technology as means for achieving these goals."

Since the future of Reuters lies in increased digital revenue — its competitor, the Associated Press, just went mobile and receives only 28 percent of its money from newspapers — we have to agree with Nicole.

Magazine brands announced 65 new digital initiatives in the first quarter of 2008, according to a report from the Magazine Publishers of America. Everyone from The Atlantic to Wine Spectator got into the game with blogs, podcasts, videos, social networking and all the other good stuff that makes Web 2.0 work. The number was a 14 percent increase from the same time period last year.

Now we all love growth, but fourteen percent isn't much for a medium that's so behind the times. In the first five weeks of Q2, media companies announced 34 new initiatives. In other words, the conquest of the Internet will continue. Slowly.

Las Vegas Magazine, Vegas Magazine and the rest of Greenspun Media's offerings always struck us as publications that might look pretty on an expensive coffee table but not as something we'd ever actually read. So pardon us if we're not exactly jumping out of our coffee shop seat upon hearing the news that the mags will be available on Zinio.

From the release:

Digital editions of the GMG publications are an exact replica of the print edition with the benefits of immediate delivery, easy storage with paper-free archival, a hyperlinked table of contents, quick links, portable access and enhanced features such as rich media, zoom, keyword search and more.

Whatever. We'll happily save the environment and we love brands expanding online, but Zinio isn't the solution for Greenspun. What are we supposed to do, put our iPhone on our coffee table?

If we worked at a monthly magazine, the last thing we'd want to do is start writing a blog for said publication's Web site. But that's not the case at Real Simple. The magazine offered its staffers the chance to write for its Simply Stated blog network and the response was "overwhelming," with half the editorial staff jumping at the opportunity. When the dust cleared — undoubtedly swept away with a product from the mag's pages — "the editors of RealSimple.com chose eight lucky — and talented editors across a range of content areas," according to a release.

Somehow, we can't imagine the staff was that eager to hop on the Internet bandwagon, but then again, if we worked in a dying industry we might be looking elsewhere too.

The full list is, where else, after the jump

continued...

Our boys over at TVNewser can live blog the heck out of the primaries, but can they fold Hill and Obama into cute little finger puppets? Doubtful (although we wouldn't put it past them).

Luckily, someone else has our finger puppet well-being in mind. FoldUsCandidate.com provides printouts and video instructions for making your favorite candidate into a perfect work time suck. Just think of all the faux debates you can have. This primary might never end.

If only there was an Al Gore doll.

Stephen Colbert, Michel Gondry, will.i.am and pretty much everyone else in the whole world were among the winners of the 12th annual Webby Awards announced earlier today. In all, almost 70 categories were included, each featuring both a Webby Award winner and a People's Voice Winner.

Multiple winners include NYTimes.com (8), The Onion (7), PostSecret (4), National Geographic (4), Apple.com (4), Hometown Baghdad (3), "You Suck at Photoshop" (3), Flickr (3), FactCheck.org (3), BBC (3), TED.com (3), ESPN.com (3), and CondeNet (3). The full list is here.

We're all for the spirit of inclusion — hell, we went to a Quaker high school — but this is ridiculous.

The winners will be presented with their awards either at a June 10th ceremony hosted by Seth Meyers or a day earlier at The Webby Film and Video Awards emceed by Judah Friedlander, who was fantastically unfunny during his cameo at last week's Ellies.

We might just bitter because we never win anything.

Today's New York Times runs a feature on Internet start-up Xobni.com (get it —"inbox" spelled backwards) that launched a plug-in which helps index your Outlook Express 2003 or 2007 messages, making them easily searchable. Considering we spent three minutes earlier today trying to find someone's email address, this seems like a good thing.

Investors see value beyond simple search functions. "The software also interprets the social relationships between people who are sending messages to each other ... an enticing proposition for Silicon Valley," the article states.

Former Yahoo vice president Jeff Bonforte sees promise, as he signed on as the CEO in February. Microsoft discussed buying Xobni earlier in the year, but was about as successful as it was in purchasing Bonforte's previous employer.

Per usual, "the retooled Web site features an abundance of new multimedia components, Web videos, podcasts, breaking news, a cohesive data center and a strengthened online community." Is it just us or are these all starting to look the same?

Yahoo Buzz, the kinda, sorta news aggregation site that says relevant because of its monster traffic, rolled out some widgets today, as well as RSS feeds for stories and individual categories.

Web sites can now add an icon allowing users to Buzz stories. If enough people do, said ends up on the Yahoo Buzz homepage. It's just like Digg, but... not as good.

We'll let editor-in-chief Jonathan Dorn do the honors:

Since last September, we have been architecting what our readers said they wanted: more multimedia content, GPS-enabled hikes, current gear reviews, and loads of interactive trip tools. This site is not only a reflection of Backpacker, but also our readers.

Architecting, is that sort of like slacklining?