Citizenbay.com: New User-Generated News Site
Citizenbay.com: New User-Generated News Site
Submitted by kpaul.mallasch on Mon, 10/30/2006 - 5:09pm.New Journalism Hope member Julie Wohlberg sent me a press release for CitizenBay.com. I have to admit I hadn't heard of them before. Like what I see so far, though. Very web2.0 feel to the site. I'll dig into it some more and may offer more thoughts. Until then, here's the press release.
New User-Generated News Site, Citizenbay.com, "Shows Members The Money"
With Community Ranking System, Contributors Get Paid Daily for Popular Local News Posts in 80 Cities across the U.S. and Canada
NEW YORK – October 11, 2006 – Citizenbay, a Web community of people searching, sharing and producing local news and information, announced today the launch of its global community in which anyone can post or search localized content. This free service allows members to post stories and information that are then reviewed and ranked by their peers. These rankings collectively determine the prominence of a member’s post.
Citizenbay users have the opportunity to contribute to their community in two ways: by writing their own newsworthy posts or seeding news stories they find online. Users are also encouraged to add multimedia elements to their posts, from photos and videos to podcasts.
In addition to sharing information, members have the opportunity to monetize their contributions based on the rankings of their posts. Each day, the top 10 most popular stories in each of the 80 primary cities in the United States and Canada covered by Citizenbay – a total of 800 daily - based on the number of votes received by fellow members – are rewarded with a payment.
Posts are organized into channels, and in addition to local news include classifieds and events. Currently, Citizenbay provides local news to more than 80 primary cities across the United States and Canada. Cities not included in this primary list are classified as secondary cities, which offer both local coverage and coverage for their closest primary cities.
“Our goal is to build a large network of contributors in each of the cities we cover, who will contribute to daily news postings that will keep their communities informed and entertained,” explains Oleg Tscheltzoff, founder of CitizenBay. “By allowing users to vote on the most popular stories, we create a democratic and social method of disseminating local news that isn’t dominated by an editor’s decisions.”
About Citizenbay
Citizenbay (www.citizenbay.com) is a free, real-time Web community of user-generated content for searching, viewing, sharing and producing local information. Citizen journalists produce and seed local news, classifieds and events, which can be searched and filtered by city, region or country. Members collectively decide the prominence of each posting by voting on its relevance. The top 10 posts in each of the 80 primary cities in the US and Canada are rewarded daily with payment.
The idea isn't that new, but I like that they understand they will need to pay contributors.
Also, being web 2.0 (i.e. pages don't reload much even though information changes, the post about web 2.0 analytics last week is relevant.)
Any other thoughts out there in CitJourno land? Let's welcome Wohlberg to Journalism Hope the right way. ;)
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also interesting
is that they're offering people who can't/won't submit content (i.e. the 99% of users to a site) a means to contribute to the site by voting on items. i really wish them the best of luck.
i'm still a little hesitant about starting something like that on a wide basis. better to entrench in one region (one state? ;) and spread from there.
like risk, the game. (stolen from Mike Orren - how is he btw? anyone know?) the players who win a lot chose australia and build up their forces before taking over the rest of the board.
anyway...