It's a shame you went with the name WPNI. By going with that name, you have lost the brand leverage of Washington Post. Almost everyone instantly recognizes the Washington Post brand and the WP logo.

I know that if I received an email today from WPNI to join their network, I would give it little consideration. However, when I originally saw the call for bloggers from Washingtonpost.com I jumped on it right away.

If you want to maximize your ability to draw advertisers to this network, I think you need to seriously reconsider Washingtonpost.com Blogroll or any other name that better leverages the Washington Post brand.

You have an amazing brand in the media world. Use it!

Hi Jeff,

I agree with George that using the WPNI brand is unfortunate.

Here is the questions that Washington Post need to ask --
Are we facing inwards, that is focusing on the advertising/publishing communities (who knows the WPNI brand)?
Or are we also facing outward and trying to reach new clients and new customers in the new blog world? You see, these new to-be discovered clients will be clueless as to what the brand WPNI stands for!! Well, it is bad form to make your potential clients to look clueless.

Thinking out loud, I think this is a serious mistake to use the WPNI brand as it is too inward looking (too much focusing on existing customers who know WPNI). In my naive view, I would rather use the brand Washington Post or Newsweek.

Finally, it is good to hear that there are more than 30 experienced sales reps working on this initiative. Best of luck. May be it is time for me to buy some of Mr. Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway shares which owns 10% of Washington Post. (big smile)

Cheers,
Kempton