Examiner.com snaps up citizen-journalism hub NowPublic
Examiner.com, the media company known best for its right-leaning owner, Philip Anschutz, announced that it has purchased citizen journalism-driven web site NowPublic. The price was undisclosed, but PaidContent pegged the sale price $25 million.
The site collects and disseminates news articles from hundreds of writers in 160 countries around the globe, most without any journalistic training. Its connection to location is particularly interesting, allowing viewers to easily find news relevant to their local areas.
This is the… Continue Reading
NowPublic buys up Guy Kawasaki’s Truemors (believe it or not)
When Guy Kawasaki started Truemors, a site for spreading Internet rumors, his intentions weren’t quite clear. Was it an experiment? A joke? The product of too much free time? Or perhaps not too much time — after all, it didn’t look like the site had taken much effort to create. “The plan is simple,” Kawasaki wrote at the time. “Get a site launched in a few months, see if people like it, and sell ads and… Continue Reading
MSNBC swallows Newsvine, pulls news sites back into spotlight
Newsvine, one of the more professional Internet sites that collects news submitted by regular people, has been acquired by MSNBC.com.
Unlike popular news ranking sites Digg and Reddit, which link to existing news sites, much of Newsvine’s content is written and reported by its users. The acquisition marks a deepening acceptance of “citizen journalism” by major media outlets.
Founded in 2005, the site has grown to about a million users per month — a substantial number for… Continue Reading
Associated Content’s bold media strategy — relying on Google
Associated Content, a company that delivers all kinds of information online, from movie reviews to tutorials about how to fix a kitchen sink disposal, has raised a $10 million in a second round of funding.
Associated Content is notable because its branding is all but unknown, but it is drawing five million unique users and 12 million page views monthly — almost entirely by tinkering with its content so that it appears high in search engine… Continue Reading
NowPublic, citizen journalism site, expands with $10.6M
NowPublic, the citizen journalism site that lets individuals take pictures and post articles about news they see going on around them, has raised $10.6 million in a first round of capital.
NowPublic, based in Vancouver, says it now has 118,000 contributing journalists, more than the 50,000 or so journalists at a competing site, OhmyNews. Once NowPublic contributors submit their news, NowPublic puts it on its own Web site, but also offers it up to news organizations,… Continue Reading
Thoof, a news ranking site that wants to serve the masses
(Updated at bottom with more discussion on differences from Digg, others)
Thoof is the latest company seeking to offer news readers articles that are relevant to them.
The Austin, Tex. company launched today, boasting an approach it says is more useful to the wider masses than competitors such as Digg, Reddit, NewsVine, NowPublic, Topix and others that seek to rank articles. Thoof’s trick is to latch on to information it finds about users’ news tastes, store this… Continue Reading