The Associated Press was created by publishers to let papers share stories and reduce editorial costs, in an age where everyone knew their business model and barriers to entry were rising.

Today barriers to entry are at rock-bottom and valid business models are hard to come by.

So naturally, everyone's trying to create an AP.

This is going about things backward. Business models aren't for sharing. They must first be created by entrepreneurs, then expanded upon. Only once they're established can you expect the kind of consolidation an AP represents.

What we have, then, is a business opportunity. What is that opportunity?

A shared registration database would be a good place to start. One sign-in, and one cookie, might get a reader posting privileges at hundreds of sites. The database would provide advertisers with a working profile of the readers (demographics and psychographics) justifying a higher cost per thousand on ads. Blogs on the network could be bundled based on politics, subject matter, or geography, just as is done in the magazine business.

The result would be a brand offering the services of an ad network. It should also be able to aggregate other business opportunities for the members of the network, so it would have aspects of a talent agency as well.

How close are we to something like that? Not very close at all:

• Roger Simon's proposed Blog News Service has a defined audience but more editorial ambition than business sense.
• John Battelle's FM Publishing has ambition but neither a technical nor a sales lead. And the guy in charge doesn't appear to know what he's selling, either.
• Arianna Huffington seems to think star power will mean a scaled blog effort. Maybe, maybe not, but where's the money coming from?
• Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton are establishing themselves as publishers, but does that mean what they have are blogs? I don't think so. What you've got there are chains of newsletters. But it's the most promising effort in this list.
• I'm a member of the Media Bloggers Association, which will meet in Nashville this weekend, but what I've seen so far is a nascent trade union, not a business group.

I think the key to answering this question of a blog business model is to look at what's working now.

The most exciting economic impacts of the blogosphere are in politics, where real money has been raised and distributed. The problem is that, except for MoveOn.Org, few have developed into real, ongoing, coherent scaled businesses. Scaled traffic, yes. Scaled community, yes. Organized giving, yes. Celebrity for those involved? Yes. But, again with the exception of Moveon, we're talking about one-man bands.

And what is the difference between Moveon.Org and everyone else?

That's right kids. A mailing list.

Back in the 1990s we had a few big advertising aggregators, which had pretensions about turning into agencies, which led with technology, but which ultimately failed in the dot-bomb.

That, I think, is the place to start the search for blog business models. If an outfit like Blogads could offer multiple "networks" based on image and interests, then extract premium prices for reaching those readers, it would be a start.

If such an outfit worked to build and maintain registration databases, it would be even better.