Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales just announced the launch of Openserving, a site that offers free web hosting and wiki software. So how is that different from Wales for-profit Wikia? Well, it’s not. Yet. The big move that has guys like Reuters declaring, “Wikipedia founder remakes Web-publishing economics” is Openserving’s seeming encouragement of user-implemented advertisements. Right […]
The Art of the Party
“Chelsea’s become too clean. We need something different.” Solange Umutoni is not talking about the floodlit circus that used to be 27th Street. Nor is she referring to its formerly notorious nightclubs—places like Cain and Bungalow 8—where the most illicit vice is now cigarette-smoking. Ms. Umutoni talking about art. It’s December 4, 2006, and we’re […]
How Blogs Become Journalism
Acknowledging that “citizen journalism has forced news organizations to change the way they do business,” news site OnMilwaukee.com announced last month it would invite readers to launch their own blogs on all things Milwaukeean. So how are they faring? Ironically, publisher Andy Tarnoff predicted the news site’s biggest problem in his inaugural article: There’s only […]
Digg to Feature User-Generated Content
Digg, a news website that ranks links according to user votes, may be ready to shake things up a little more. A friend familiar with the matter tells me that the self-proclaimed "user driven social content website" has plans to start featuring user-generated content. Presently all listings on Digg point to external sites. What would […]
Open Up the Business Model: How Citizen Journalists Get Rewarded
About 50 million Americans have added their original content to the Internet’s bounty. Most haven’t seen a dime. Five of the ten fastest growing brands on the Web rely on users for content. Most, like MySpace, Flickr and Heavy.com, do not pay their contributors. But the tide may be changing towards systems of compensation. Interestingly, […]
COMING SOON: The Wishlist
You can already do a lot of amazing things on GroundReport. But there are lot more exciting features in the pipeline. Here’s how we plan to make GroundReport even better: Write better: Submit article text and images from your cell phone or mobile device. Use promotion tools to spread the word about your article to […]