The Circuit

indieWIRE's new site is noteworthy for the flag it plants, as well as how it plants it.   Launched today, the site is slick and brimming -- a big jump from their blog-entry model of old.  Yet while it doesn't look like a blog anymore, it is.  Kinda.

The new site and the press release that proceeded it stress aggregation as their new model.  In fact, "recommended" and "recent" news feeds (from Spout, Variety, HR, etc.) are given prime real estate in a big box, right next to their headlining article, which today happens to be a first-person piece by Sundance topper Geoff Gilmore.

On TV, news orgs boast of their "expanded coverage" by listing their go-getting correspondents stationed in all corners of the globe.  Christiane Amanpour never sleeps.  Brian Williams waited for Katrina, cameras rolling.  Anderson Cooper's airline miles could feed the same small nations he visits.  Doppler Storm MAX 3000 knows when you're watering your lawn. 

Yet on the web, some news sites are "expanding" their coverage by grabbing stuff from other news sites -- so a brower's bookmarks are, in fact, bookmarks themselves.   (The good ones like iW mix in their own original content.) 

While aggregation is nothing new, iW's move is unique in that the 12-year-old news org is weaving it so thoroughly into their new business plan.