Six Apart, the company behind major commercial blogging platforms TypePad and Movable Type, has launched the Journalist Bailout Program, offering to provide free blogs to out-of-work media types. If you thought blogs were already free, you’re mostly right — sites like Blogger.com, LiveJournal and WordPress have long offered instant, cookie-cutter blogs to anyone with a … well, to anyone.

But the “Pro”-level membership Six Apart is giving out usually costs $150 a year, and comes with enough features and customer support to allay most technical worries — allowing the unemployed to concentrate on their real problems.

TypePad will cut you in on its ad program too. And though the program claims to feed its bloggers most of the revenue from any ads on their blogs, no one should expect to hear cash-register noises.

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Larry Dignan offers his view on the announcement that LinkedIn has added in a bundle of applications designed to enhance the platform. Larry is mildly dismissive, suggesting that:

I wouldn’t call these applications exactly enterprise class, but could be useful in the corporate environment.

If we’re equating ‘enterprise’ to the 1,000 person up business then yes, Larry has a good point but if we’re talking about the individual, looking to establish a personal business network then I disagree. Huddle for instance is a great application for the kind of crowdsourcing we’re seeing in niche networks. Tripit is useful for connecting with those you may have in your network when on the road. From a regional viewpoint, I would have preferred to see Dopplr. But Wordpress.com inclusion just seems lame. What’s wrong with Wordpress.org?

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“A community for students, by students,” reads the slogan atop The Nevada High School Report, a Web site launched in July.

In recent posts, local high schoolers have written about the effect of the foreclosure crisis on young people and how to break the habit of procrastination.

Also included are an interview with local singer and songwriter Zach Fountain and a video of a girls’ volleyball game between Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley high schools.

The Report, at clearconceptions.org/nhsr, was dreamed up by Ben Rowley, a UNLV student working toward a master’s degree in education.

After blogging about Nevada prep sports at benrowley.wordpress.com from August 2007 to March, Rowley wanted to create a place where local students could share their work, everything from art to essays and news stories.

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