NowPublic is a participatory news network which mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world. The company currently has thousands of reporters in over 140 countries. (88858 members in 3379 cities as of May 6, 2007; and even my city Karachi is featured.)
Just for the love of writing, reporting, sharing, and be read - this army of global reporters source and share their stories in a multimedia format. Text, audio, video - all is posted at NowPublic.com.
It seems NowPublic, with its mantra "crowd powered media," really has got crowdsourced journalism working for it. According to them, "[Within a year], the company has become one of the fastest growing news organizations with thousands of reporters in over 140 countries. During Hurricane Katrina, NowPublic had more reporters in the affected area than most news organizations have on their entire staff."
"Crowdsourcing is a neologism for a business model in which a company or institution takes a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsources it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call over the Internet." (Wikipedia, as of May 6, 2007)
Crowd-sourced Journalism is reporting and editing by the public via the Internet. Increasingly, crowdsourced media is becoming global in nature though some new sites remain local - in fact that is the appeal of such sites.
Crowdsourced Journalism
The News is NowPublic.com
Trend Themes
1. Crowdsourced Journalism - Disruptive innovation opportunity: Explore new ways to engage and mobilize a global army of reporters to cover news events.
2. Participatory News Network - Disruptive innovation opportunity: Develop platforms that enable users to source and share stories in multimedia formats.
3. Crowdsourcing - Disruptive innovation opportunity: Create business models that outsource traditionally designated jobs to a large group of people via open calls over the internet.
Industry Implications
1. Media and Journalism - Disruptive innovation opportunity: Drive innovation in news organizations by integrating crowdsourced reporting and editing.
2. Technology and Internet - Disruptive innovation opportunity: Build platforms and tools to facilitate crowdsourced journalism and participatory news networks.
3. Communication and Collaboration - Disruptive innovation opportunity: Develop new ways for users to collaborate and contribute to media content through crowdsourcing.