Adventures in the World of Content

There was some action on the content front today as ISP EarthLink signed a
deal with Forbes.com for financial news and MSNBC.com inked a deal to get
content for its opinion section from Microsoft’s Slate online magazine.

Atlanta-based EarthLink wants to provide its 4.8 million
subscribers with Forbes.com’s news, content and portfolio services directly
from their EarthLink Personal Start Page. The Earthlink Finance Channel also
will add Forbes content. Financial arrangements were not disclosed.

As part of the new portfolio tracker service available free to EarthLink
subscribers, users can create detailed views or simple watchlists of stocks
and mutual fund holdings; find message boards, news and charts; consolidate
and manage current investments; conduct research on companies and mutual
funds; and monitor total portfolio gain/loss values and individual
stock/equity values in dollars as well as percentages.

Meanwhile, MSNBC.com said its opinion section would now be called “Opinions
with Slate.”

“Slate complements the work of MSNBC with our intelligent analysis of the
news,” said Scott Moore, publisher at Slate.

Slate will provide the majority of the content for the opinion section and
will retain Slate branding and links to Slate.com. The partnership also
includes a joint effort to increase targeted advertising online, although
financial specifics were not disclosed.