Mahesh Shantaram on rediff.com notes the rise of BlogShares, a portal that allows people to speculate with imaginary dollars on the value of weblogs based on the number of inbound links, bringing new meaning to the pat phrase "information economy". If the value of content can be so easily conceptualized in a value-driven model, how far away are we from being able to have the pricing of content in different contexts based on similiar value-driven models? We see that already with auctioning for contextual placement of ads, and it's not all that far off for mainstream content, as weblogging concepts make their way into the mainstream of professional and consumer content. Journalists are already getting their knuckles rapped by their corporate keepers for tying to leverage their reputations in the weblogging sphere, but how much longer will it be before we begin to see the inverse - major media outlets bidding for "free agent" webloggers as star attractions within their portals?