The "it" in question is Plastic.com, a news filter and Web log devoted to pop culture commentary. Content aggregator Automatic Media launched the site yesterday. Plastic.com provides links to a wide array of stories on politics, movies, music, technology and sex along with humorous and provocative responses by readers, all smartly packaged for its Web-savvy readers.

"[The editors behind sister web sites Feed and Suck] have been aware that our audience is pretty wired and that they're constantly combing the Net for anything that captures their interest," said editor-in-chief Joseph Anuff. "For the past five years we've heard about great online stories from our readers. We wanted a place to publish these."

Plastic.com, which uses licensed technology and the same "open source" philosophy behind Slashdot, a popular Web site for Linux/open source software fans, will create 99% of its content through its audience.

"We looked beyond the subject matter of programming with Slashdot and what we saw was an elegant mechanism that makes a collaborative effort between effort between editors and writers and readers much easier than what's been used before," said Anuff, who is also a co-founder of sister site Suck.com.

All of which Plastic.com is able to do with a miniscule staff and a shoestring budget -- thanks to help not only from its audience, but also from Automatic Media's content partners. At the moment Plastic.com has only four full-time employees, but pools together editorial help from Modern Humorist, Wired News, Spin, Inside.com, Nerve, The New Republic, Movieline, Gamers.com, NetSlaves and TeeVee.org. Participating editors review user submissions and guide Plastic's links and discussions.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see that we are the site that ties together all of these other sites such as Feed and Suck and Inside," said Anuff. Plastic.com is the first offering for content umbrella Automatic Media, which comprises FEED, Suck and Alt.culture, and which hopes that its collaborative model will enable the Web site to avoid the pitfalls of larger content plays.

"We're a totally different model from many content sites -- a much smarter model than most of them," said Anuff. "We're not saying that others don't have good models too, but we don't think it's intelligent to have a $1 million-a-month burn rate, like some do. A much better model is to have four people in an office and a distributed network of help. It's almost in totally different businesses than other content sites."

Established in July 2000, Automatic Media raised a $4 million round of financing from Advance.net, Terra Lycos Ventures, an independent venture capital firm based in Pittsburgh; and Paladin UK.

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* Paul Zakrzewski is the associate editor of atNewYork.com.