Once it institutes paid subscriptions for some of its most popular online content, the New York Times will likely turn to bloggers as affiliate marketers to help generate revenue, writes ClickZ, quoting The Times's senior VP of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz. The new NYTimes.com financial model will also consider a restructuring of site and content, including RSS feeds, to take advantage of the "trend to unbundle from the container."

Speaking at the Syndicate conference in New York, Nisenholtz said affiliate marketing is central to the paper's view of online publishing: "This is going to be a growing part of the ecosystem of the web. In the same way Amazon.com made tremendous headway with its affiliates in the book business, we can create a revenue stream down the tail for people who are creating blogs, etc."

The Times earlier this month introduced regular coverage of new media and online marketing, including blogs - a move that makes even more sense in the context of TimesSelect, scheduled to launch in September.

The information-affiliate program will eventually be carried over to other New York Times properties, including Boston.com and About.com. Nisenholtz said the affiliate model is not yet fleshed out, but expects it to be when TimesSelect launches.