Great post, and Spot.Us is a very interesting (and timely) example.
suzanneyada
· 4 months ago
I know the Spot.Us model has been working for our huge project over at The Public Press. Instead of an individual story, we're funding a team of reporters to cover one of the worst city budget crises in San Francisco memory. We've already raised over $3k and well on our way to the goal of $5k. We've already started serious coverage here.
Big thumbs up!
Gerry Grant
· 4 months ago
An old fashioned approach is for readers to be loyal to the publications and buy using the affiliate links on the site. They can also click the advertising to generate income for the publisher.
Widgett Walls
· 4 months ago
Excellent ideas for tapping into crowdfunding. And I sure hope it's the future, because we're trying it on our site to get what we need to expand and lose our ads.
People Search
· 4 months ago
I think good content and good information is the future of journalism.
Dirk2112
· 4 months ago
Nope sorry. If folks like the NYT start charging they'll be out of business inside a year or so. Maybe they should try on contextual advertising of the affiliate partnership variety before they hop of this particular cliff.
Ashu
· 4 months ago
I think a few people will still donate a few $$$ if not a lot, maybe you guys should add the widgets to your site as well =) and see the user response to it.
I wrote a small post on both and there are videos from their live demo as well. PayyAttention kachingle
Michael Hakansson
· 4 months ago
Hi !
Journalism and publications must be more free over the world.
This horrible scandal in sweden has been hushed up by the politicians in sweden.
Shameless self-promo alert: I'm crowdfunding my own book advance. And it's going really well so far! I've raised about $4500 from small donors, then $2000 from large donors in a matching fund, and the best -- $100/month in pizza from Two Boots in NYC.
I can see donations being a partial solution. But that seems too unstable for a large publication. The Kachingle idea is interesting, I wonder if it will catch on.
Mike
· 4 months ago
There's a question of what we are actually after when we consume a story (which has obvious implications for what we pay for).
To some extent the value in a conventional newspaper is based on convenience e.g. we can pick it up at the news stand opposite our local coffee shop. By contrast identifying the 'good' stories from the 41 million odd bloggers out there is a convenience problem if ever there was one - we have previously paid for newspapers to find 'good' writers for us and hardcopy publications like 'Moneyweek' also work off this principle.
The second issue is format. It's this principle that I assume underlies Amazon's decision to sell blogs (that can be obtained for free on the web) on the Kindle at 99c a month. Let's face it a PC screen is crap for reading for a number of reasons.
thosch
· 4 months ago
We need some application for social networks where people can show to which projects they donated. Like a facebook app, where one gets medals or similar, to show to their friends.
RickWaghorn
· 4 months ago
... or else you hand small niche publishers a DIY ad system that enables them to source their own advertising... and keep 90% of their revenue...
Here we go, Lichfield, UK pop c75,000... new local news blog... one strip of www.addiply.com ... six days later and Philip and Ross are already pulling in c$80 a month from their 13,500 uniques... covers their hosting...
Beta trialling in $ form out of Berkeley's www.OaklandNorth.net and www.MissionLocal.org - all we;ve got to do now is to teach the Berkeley J-School kids to sell... that way you can afford to put a cherry on top of Adrian Holovaty's EveryBlock... ie a hyper-local 'beat' reporter.
All the best, etc
R
Taylor Walsh
· 4 months ago
These options remind me that almost all models for doing the local news that I read about now completely abandon the relationship between local merchants and media entities that serve a region where those merchants operate. I understand the impulse to operate in a non-commercial framework. I don't think it is necessary, nor is it really a good idea to do that. That relationship definitely has to be re-imagined and recreated. But as others have written, local businesses are owned by and employ local residents all of whom have, or should have, an interest in well and fairly executed journalism, as a piece of the fabric of the self-governance we've hung from the flagpole. Citizen cynicism about and hostility toward "the media" is a separate problem that also has to be rectified. Journalism as a national institution needs a substantive girth that can provide it - the institution/profession and the democracy it embodies - the means to offset the periodic violations and depredations of .com and .gov. This will require a network, relationships, and economic community bonds stronger than the uneven forms that are likely to emerge from the incipient crowdsourced, crowdfunded, blog-networked jourosphere that now seems to be under construction; at least in many minds.
giseleh
· 4 months ago
At least here in Brazil, I don't think crowdfunding in journalism would help in any way. It doesn't seem to fit our culture.
Slava
· 4 months ago
Filmmakers have been doing the same. Indiegogo.com has enabled filmmakers to raise over $130,000. Now filmmakers are even getting opportunities for exposure on digital distribution sites or at festivals. Keep up the great work David.
digidave
· 4 months ago
Hi - this is David Cohn the founder of Spot.Us. I just wanted to say: Great article. I appreciate the lay of the land approach to all this.
It is an interesting experiment and we are having some success.
In the end what we are really testing is two fold. One part is very much under our control and the other isn't.
Our platform: It needs to be a tool that folks can use. Society: Is local civic journalism something that people are willing to donate 10 or 20 bucks towards. If there is no other way to report on city hall unless a group of people come together to share resources: Is there a marketplace that can support this?
People donate to charities all the time because it is a perceived social good. The question is if journalism can also be perceived as something that benefits society.
We will find out.
mikeluo
· 4 months ago
Hot cougars? Sensual milfs? "Cougar Central"? "San Carlos" ? or "San Francisco"? *** Agelover. c o m *** is the real place that is packed with them.
PeopleSearch
· 4 months ago
This is yet another prime example that there is strength in numbers. Google People Search
Dav
· 4 months ago
Interesting article and makes a number of insightful points. At Sprinklpenny, we believe there is a future in crowdfunding both for publishers and as a business model. We're in beta at the moment and about to launch publicly very soon so why not check us out at www.sprinklepenny.com
All Comments
Big thumbs up!
I wrote a small post on both and there are videos from their live demo as well. PayyAttention
kachingle
Journalism and publications must be more free over the world.
This horrible scandal in sweden has been hushed up by the politicians in sweden.
http://doctor-cheat.blogspot.com/
Regards Michael
I wrote about my progress and lessons learned on Monday: http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/07/13/crowdfund...
To some extent the value in a conventional newspaper is based on convenience e.g. we can pick it up at the news stand opposite our local coffee shop. By contrast identifying the 'good' stories from the 41 million odd bloggers out there is a convenience problem if ever there was one - we have previously paid for newspapers to find 'good' writers for us and hardcopy publications like 'Moneyweek' also work off this principle.
The second issue is format. It's this principle that I assume underlies Amazon's decision to sell blogs (that can be obtained for free on the web) on the Kindle at 99c a month. Let's face it a PC screen is crap for reading for a number of reasons.
Here we go, Lichfield, UK pop c75,000... new local news blog... one strip of www.addiply.com ... six days later and Philip and Ross are already pulling in c$80 a month from their 13,500 uniques... covers their hosting...
www.thelichfieldblog.co.uk
Beta trialling in $ form out of Berkeley's www.OaklandNorth.net and www.MissionLocal.org - all we;ve got to do now is to teach the Berkeley J-School kids to sell... that way you can afford to put a cherry on top of Adrian Holovaty's EveryBlock... ie a hyper-local 'beat' reporter.
All the best, etc
R
It is an interesting experiment and we are having some success.
In the end what we are really testing is two fold. One part is very much under our control and the other isn't.
Our platform: It needs to be a tool that folks can use.
Society: Is local civic journalism something that people are willing to donate 10 or 20 bucks towards. If there is no other way to report on city hall unless a group of people come together to share resources: Is there a marketplace that can support this?
People donate to charities all the time because it is a perceived social good. The question is if journalism can also be perceived as something that benefits society.
We will find out.
"Cougar Central"? "San Carlos" ? or "San Francisco"?
*** Agelover. c o m *** is the real place that is packed with them.