Swedish Metro has launched a new blog portal where bloggers get paid about half a US cent per page view. That is, if you get at least 5,000 page views per month, reports Media Culpa.

Bloggers have often been accused of being parasites on mainstream media, but over time many newspapers have found that bloggers are marvellous traffic generators: incorporating readers' blogs on a news site is an easy way of increasing traffic, and we all know how traffic is the magic key to higher advertisement revenues - something Metro is not shy of admitting (my translation): 'We were late going online and we want to create visitor numbers that reflect the fact that we actually are Sweden's biggest newspaper. Through the blogs we get more traffic, which we can then sell to the advertisers,' Andreas Ohlson, managing director in Metro Sweden, told Dagens Medier.

But, using Metro Sweden's new blogging portal as your platform does have a catch or two, says Media Culpa:... 'by signing up you also give Metro permission to use anything you write and publish it without giving you compensation. Aftonbladet has the same terms of service, by the way. Personally I prefer to own the stuff I write.'

So who's a parasite on who again?