Doesn’t that sound great?  Sure does!

In June we surpassed 6.5 million unique visitors a month, making Allvoices (depending on the measuring service you use) the largest citizen journalism hub in the world; even bigger than CNN’s iReport which has a huge media partner to help it along.  You can read the TechCrunch coverage here.

It’s important to remember the only help we’ve had getting to this point has been from our users–people hungry for alternative sources of news that isn’t stripped down or sanitized.  People who are tired of not getting hyper-local or international news from mainstream sources because those sources have cut their ability to report down to the bone.  People who have grown to expect immediate information delivered with hard-hitting, first-person perspectives.  And people who want to share their perspectives and experiences with the world.

We’re just two years old, but we’re in the right place at the right time for the news industry.  Follow us or participate on the site.  It’s easy to do both.

A release on our traffic and some of the innovations we’ve brought to citizen journalism is below.

Thanks for all your support!

@allvoices_staff

Six Million People a Month Get their News from Citizen Journalists on Allvoices

Innovation, interest in first-hand accounts from citizen reporters spikes activity on the web’s only global news hub

San Francisco, CA — July 2, 2010 – Allvoices.com, the largest open media site in the world, today announced that more than six million unique monthly visitors now get their news and information from citizen journalists reporting on its platform.  Allvoices is the only media site where anyone can report unfiltered news and other timely information from anywhere, anytime for immediate consumption by a global audience.  Contributor and reader growth is in direct proportion to, and an affirmation of citizen journalism’s popularity, the ease of which anyone can publish reports on Allvoices, and the site’s ability to verify report credibility—an industry first and a necessity in citizen journalism.

Founded just two years ago, Allvoices has quickly become the web’s leading resource for first-hand event accounts from hyper-local to global locales.  A unique combination of technology, automated aggregation and community content curation provides a 360 degree view of every report. Fully realized “news packages” can start with as little as a text message.  Once received and vetted, Allvoices Automated News Room surrounds incoming reports with related information from other mainstream and user-generated sources such as blogs, video, pictures and Twitter to produce a richly detailed accounting from multiple, immediate perspectives.

Over the past year Allvoices’ rapid technological innovation has raised bar for citizen journalist.  The site is responsible for introducing a number of other firsts which have contributed to the site’s popularity as a destination-location for news you can’t find within mainstream sources.  Concurrently, interest in specific world events such as the Iranian elections, the World Cup, the Olympics and other political, cultural, socio-economic and human interest stories has also contributed to Allvoices’ rapid user acquisition.

“Allvoices was born into a media climate where we were the ‘right idea at the right time,’” said Amra Tareen, founder and CEO, Allvoices.  “Citizen Journalism is finally coming into its own; there are simply too many information sources now for the mainstream media to keep up with news consumers’ growing expectations of immediacy, unfiltered and unedited content, first hand perspective, the ability to share and manipulate information or become an information source themselves.  Allvoices’ rising popularity affirms our belief that news is not defined by a finite number of publishers, but by anyone, anywhere with the means to capture an event and explain its significance.”

Advancements in citizen journalism coming out of Allvoices this year include:

• The Global Assignment Desk – where both professional and citizen journalists provide regular in-country reports from 30 major cities around the world.
• The appointment of David Warthen, Ask Jeeves (Ask.com) co-founder and Internet visionary as Allvoices’ Chief Technology Officer
  • Warthen revolutionized online search and marketing while at Ask Jeeves and helped lead the company through its initial public offering (IPO) in 1999.
  • The most lucrative incentive plan in the citizen journalism industry, including health care for citizen reporters
  • The Allvoices Syndication Program where:
    • Allvoices offers world wide exposure to media and image buyers.
    • Allvoices licences submitted images
    • Allvoices international platform showcases contributor images and increases the chances of selling images
    • Innovative reporting assignments such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa News Reporting Contest, and
    • The Allvoices/Nokia Africa Reporting Contest, which is designed to help expose the world to more compelling stories coming out of this vitally important continent as it asserts its importance on the world stage.

“We’ve worked very hard to get to this point, and the reception we’ve received from both the mainstream media and proponents of citizen journalism alike has been tremendous,” said Aki Hashmi, Chief Marketing Officer, Allvoices.  “There is broad recognition of the importance of the citizen reporter’s perspective on world events, and before our inception there were few places for that unique, first hand voice.  Our goal is to make sure we maintain a strong platform where journalists of all types can publish and promote their work.  The numbers we’re announcing today agree with and affirm our intent of providing the best vehicle for anyone who wants to expose news to the world.”

About Allvoices, Inc.

Allvoices.com is the largest global community offering local to global news and perspectives in one place. With its proprietary technology, Allvoices provides a 360⁰ view of news by enabling citizen reporting from its community and international news bureaus that is automatically surrounded by additional sources of content including mainstream news feeds and blogs, social media feeds (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), images and videos which provides context, insight and diversity of opinions around a broad range topics and issues on the global, national and local levels. Allvoices utilizes professional online news stories and media to determine relevancy and credibility with each contribution made to the site. Its highly automated system blends the latest advances in natural language processing and machine learning with a vibrant, diverse and engaged community so anyone can easily publish relevant, trustworthy news for a global audience. The resulting connection and dialogue between contributors and readers makes Allvoices the destination for breaking news, hyperlocal topics and popular global interest stories (www.allvoices.com).

Contact:

press@allvoices.com

Great journalism shouldn’t suffer because journalists can’t support themselves or their dependents, and health care is every bit as important as salary in providing journalists with the security they need to do great work.  Allvoices is fortunate to have a thriving and growing community large enough to provide the scale needed to keep health care costs down.  Right now the size of our community means we can add these benefits to our incentive plan which already financially rewards our most active contributors.  And, anyone within the Allvoices community is eligible, provided they meet basic criteria for participation on the site.

As excited as we are to offer health care, we’re looking forward to increasing our benefits.  We see this as a small and very necessary step toward changing the future of journalism as we know it.  The plan we now have in place is a great start for a citizen media site, but we’re cognizant of what else is needed; additional benefits will be introduced over time as we continue to grow.  For a while we’ve been soliciting feedback from our community on other benefits they’d like to see in return for their work, and we intend on delivering.  We’re committed to providing an environment where people can not just augment their living by writing for Allvoices, but can make their living here if they so choose.

Anyone interested in sharing their stories, building an audience and creating a name for themselves with help from our platform is welcome to participate in our program.  It’s our hope that by providing this additional measure of security, citizen and professional journalists alike will be free to do their best work, unencumbered by worries over the cost of keeping themselves or their families healthy.

Last week we had some fun after TechCrunch profiled AllVoices and our recent investment from Vantage Point Venture Partners.

Per usual, TechCrunch stories go viral very quickly, which was certainly true of Leena Rao’s piece on us.  Shortly after her post hit the site Twitter lit up with re-tweets and news outlets looked for confirmation.  Articles taking similar but different slant on our  model followed for a few days.  It was both awesome and humbling at the center of a new media storm and to see how quickly quality, citizen-generated news grabs so many people’s attention.

Of course, some of those people work for CNN’s iReport.  We didn’t intend to ruffle their feathers, but Leena’s story raised some internal flags.  Shortly after her post went up the international cable channel’s citizen media portal–constantly cross-promoted by the network’s television anchors–contacted TechCrunch with updated  contributor and site traffic stats.  From the post:

UPDATE: CNN has reached out to TechCrunch with updated numbers on iReport:

* CNN iReport has more than 477,000 registered “iReporters” (Source: iReport Server Log Data)
* According to Nielsen Online, CNN iReport is the number one citizen journalism site online (Nielsen Online Custom, September ’09)
* The iReport section of CNN.com averages 2.1 million unique users each month alone. (Source: Nielsen Online)
* iReport experienced its highest traffic day on June 11, 2008 with 2.8 million page views (Source: Omniture)
* iReport averages 16,112 submissions (photo and video) each month. (Source: iReport server log data)

Congratulations to iReport!  It’s contributors would probably love to know they’re  server log statistics.  iReport’s response to our story was short, sweet and to the point.  But what we found interesting is what they *didn’t* say: they’re listening and watching.  Closely.  Why?  They lack community, and community is the common thread with Allvoices.  Want proof?  Read the comments posted by our readers and contributors on TC.

We don’t have an international television news network to get the word about us out.  We don’t put citizen reports through editorial vetting processes before highlighting them on our more trafficked pages – it’s all handled by our community.  Yet we’re growing.  Why? Allvoices is true citizen journalism: no filters, no editorial oversight, no barriers to experiencing news and commentary as intended–just raw human condition stuff submitted to us “as is”–a tweet, a text, a picture, a long form story etc.–and delivered to you as a comprehensive package.

No other outlet wraps as many perspectives as possible around a story, and we know Allvoices is the future of news.  We scale, provide reach into places you’ll never see covered in the mainstream media and bring perspectives to light which otherwise would never be exposed.

Come see what you’re missing and add your voice too.

Axel Springer Kicking Off News Paywall With iPhone Apps | mocoNews.

While the newspaper business has a legitimate concern over how to be compensated for creating content, restricting access to it doesn’t seem to be the best way to recoup advertising revenue that has migrated online.

Paywalls make it harder to get news from organizations which are already producing less of it,  so it’s a stretch to think such a contradictory business practice will win favor with news consumers.

That’s why it’s as important as ever to cultivate a thriving citizen media environment.  Mainstream outlets are going to be engaged in this battle with online aggregators for the foreseeable future, which will further erode the quality and quantity of their product.  The paywall fight isn’t going to play out behind closed doors, and the result has implications for everyone.  We’ll continue to keep our eye on the story here, and look forward to your thoughts as well.

Today we announced a deal with WENN (World Entertainment News Network), which provides more than 1000 mainstream media outlets around the world with entertainment news, celebrity pics and video, to give the network exclusive access to entertainment-related content uploaded by Allvoices’ contributors.

This effectively increases WENN’s ability to get content by 200,000 potential sources to help it stay hyper competitive in the celebrity news business.  So now, thanks to our contributors, no matter where the celebrities go Allvoices will be there to cover them.

If you happen to capture that great, candid celebrity-on-vacation shot, your picture could end up in the pages of your favorite gossip mag, newspaper or even television.  Just upload your celebrity pic or video to Allvoices and let  WENN’s relationships with the entertainment media make you some great money.  Allvoices splits the proceeds from sales of its content with contributors, giving them 75 percent of the proceeds.  Exclusive pictures and video are obviously worth the most.

But please, remember never to put yourself or others in a compromising position, either legally or physically, to “get the shot.”

WENN’s CEO, Lloyd Beiny, summed up our new relationship this way:

We’re in a super competitive business, and staying one jump ahead together with the global demand for entertainment news, photos & video requires a 24/7 worldwide operation,” said Lloyd Beiny, CEO, World Entertainment News Network.  “Allvoices’ contributor content provides us with a depth of material and access to entertainment photos and videos taken by people with new perspectives on what they’re seeing, as it happens.  The result is we’re able to provide our clients with the most compelling shots, videos and in-demand content first, before anyone else.  And that’s the name of our game.”

This announcement with WENN constitutes a huge leap for citizen journalism.  Citizen journalists are becoming the only source by which the mainstream media can consistently provide broad, breaking news coverage.  The celebrity jet set is increasingly difficult to track.  Demand for news about them is at an all time high and has driven up the price for exclusive content, which WENN has been dealing in for almost 20 years.  Our new arrangement with WENN extends WENN’s ability to cover more of the world all of the time for its media clients.

We absolutely can’t wait to see the first examples of Allvoices’ contributor work in the mainstream entertainment press–Happy hunting!

]]> http://allvoices.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/world-entertainment-news-network-wenn-to-syndicate-allvoices-celbrity-pics/feed/ 0 allvoicesstringer Allvoices logo WENN http://allvoices.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/we%e2%80%99ve-gone-mobile-%e2%80%93-new-features-site-improvements/ http://allvoices.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/we%e2%80%99ve-gone-mobile-%e2%80%93-new-features-site-improvements/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:34:33 +0000 msherf http://allvoices.wordpress.com/?p=524 ]]> We made changes to the site this week to bring you more mobility, flexibility, and enhancements that optimize your reports for search engines and provide a richer experience for your readers. We truly appreciate the great feedback we receive from our user community and the Allvoices team responds by delivering new features that help make your experiences on Allvoices most productive and enjoyable and enable you to expand your visibility and global reach.

Here are just a few highlights of the exciting new improvements we’ve just made:

• Mobile: We have optimized the way you can access Allvoices from your mobile devices, simplifying your ability to navigate by top stories and subject categories and making your news easy to read while you’re on the go.
• Suggested Tags: Now when you Report Your News, the Allvoices system will “automagically” suggest relevant keyword tags that you can select to better increase the chances of your reports coming up in search results on the AV site and on Google and other search engines.
• Want to add a live Twitter stream to your report?  No problem!  You can now add a live stream of related tweets by using the “Add Live Twitter Stream” button on your report page.  Simply add terms related to your report and we will show you and your readers the latest Tweets containing that term in real-time.
• Save Reports as Drafts: Our users asked for this feature and its here! Now when you Report Your News you can choose to save your report as a draft by using the “Save as Draft” button. Return to the Drafts tab in your user profile page at any time to complete and post the reports you previously saved as drafts.

You are always welcomed to contact us at support@allvoices.com with your great suggestions and you can look forward to seeing more and more site improvements ahead!

Thanks,

Sanjay Sood
CTO, Allvoices

We’ve pushed lots of new features to the site, but here are highlights of some of the exciting new improvements:

• A refresh of our main landing page that makes finding the more relevant news even easier. The layout is simplified and we are highlighting more of your great content for the world to see!
• Allvoices Widgets: Now you can take your news with you! We’ve developed a widget platform that makes it easy for you to add your AV content to any site! Check out the “widget” section under “edit profile” to get started
• New categories: You can now contribute original content in a “Causes” and “Humanitarian” category!
• You can now easily print reports on Allvoices by using the print icon at the bottom of the report page
• More control over your report page:  Don’t want to show related news stories? No problem! You can now easily toggle which types of content are shown on your report page

These are just a few of the changes in recent weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!

Thanks,

Sanjay Sood
CTO, Allvoices

Each of you is a unique individual, one of nearly seven billion distinct “voices” on our planet. Allvoices has built a worldwide open-media platform that bridges geographies and cultures, politics and beliefs, countries and borders, and welcomes you to report your news, share your knowledge and style and individual perspectives, and engage with other Allvoices users by commenting on their reports, rating them up or down, becoming fans, and inviting friends to join in the conversation.

Allvoices is an unedited and unbiased and unfiltered site that is free to join and free to use and enjoy. We have no editors on staff and only a small team to support this vibrant burgeoning global community, to enforce Allvoices’ Terms of Use, and help foster a climate of mutual respect and collegiality.

Recently, Allvoices has noticed user comments and articles where the passion and enthusiasm of a few users has turned to personal attacks and inflammatory remarks against other individuals or groups. And there are reports that the Allvoices’ private messaging system has been used inappropriately. While differences of opinion are expected and lively discourse is healthy, abusive or disruptive behavior is unacceptable and may violate Allvoices’ Terms of Use and “common sense” Community Conduct guidelines.

Community Conduct

Allvoices is a global community site and we want to encourage discussion between people from around the globe, so we have established community conduct rules that all Allvoices users agree to when they register for an account on Allvoices:

• Do not use the Allvoices website to defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights of others
• Do not post obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit or otherwise illegal content
• Do not post any inappropriate, profane, infringing, obscene, indecent unlawful material
• Do not use hate speech which contains slurs or the malicious use of stereotypes intended to attack of demean a particular gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or nationality
• Respect copyright regulations
• Do not conduct or promote any illegal activities
• Do not upload content, report, distribute or print anything that may be harmful to minors
• Do not use the personal messaging system to send unsolicited email advertisements or spam

Allvoices users should familiarize themselves with Allvoices’ Terms of Use at the following link in Allvoices Help section: http://www.allvoices.com/terms.

Report Abuse

If you are certain that an Allvoices user has violated Allvoices’ Terms of Use, you can flag the comment or report as abuse or flag a private message as spam (http://www.allvoices.com/help/abuse). However, be discriminating and use common sense when flagging abuse, as many abuse complaints turn out to be just differences of opinion, do not violate Allvoices’ Terms of Use, and no action can be taken.

Collegiality

Allvoices is a talented community and there will always be differences of opinion, but disruptive or abusive behavior cannot be tolerated. Allvoices encourages everyone to treat each other with respect, direct talents and energies in positive ways, approach disagreements with compassion and self-control, and understand and follow Allvoices’ Terms of Use and Community Conduct guidelines.

The Washington Post unveiled guidelines today restricting its newsroom staff from sharing via social networks their opinions on just. about. anything.  The “Newsroom Guidelines for Use of Facebook, Twitter and Other Online Social Networks” are a virtual radio silence order for anyone in the Post’s newsroom who also participate on the web’s social properties.

Just the facts, please...as you see, hear or speak them

paidContent.org has the full text of the guidelines (with a hat tip to TechCrunch).  Among some activities verboten by the Post if you write for the paper:

Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility. This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online.  Post journalists should not be involved in any social networks related to advocacy or a special interest regarding topics they cover, unless specifically permitted by a supervising editor for reporting and so long as other standards of transparency are maintained while doing any such reporting.

In fact, All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens (direct from the Post’s text).  So, Post journalists never really get to just be citizens.  They can’t have an opinion, or if they do, they can’t share it with anyone.

It’s easy to understand why the paper is going to such lengths to protect the integrity of its content.  It’s ombudsman, in a blog post to the paper’s readership, is refreshingly frank in his explanation that the paper has been fighting a perception problem: “Many readers already view The Post with suspicion and believe that the personal views of its reporters and editors influence the coverage.”

Well of course they do.  The Post’s reporters and editors (in fact, every newspaper’s reporters and editors) are paid to decide for their readers what is and isn’t news; what gets covered, and what doesn’t get ink.  How are those decisions made?  Personal opinion.  The opinions of reporters and editors are used to determine what is and isn’t newsworthy, and opinions are always influenced by personal filters, whether they’re cultural, political or environmental.  So there is always some element of bias at work in determining a newspaper’s content.  Yes, “professional” editors and reporters are good at shutting out their slant, but they can’t completely neutralize themselves.

Another contradiction in the Post’s guidelines: how they can expect their news staff to stop having authentic, human conversations with other connections on the web especially if, on the flip side of this no opinion order, the Post recognizes the importance of social properties for news gathering.  It’s difficult to see how the two can co-exist with one another.  The Post can’t expect its people to make connections for the purpose of gathering information, without giving up a little of themselves.  That’s just not how the web works.

Allvoices offers an unfiltered platform which embraces multiple points of view.  In fact, the more “angles” exposed around a particular story, the more information that story’s readers have with which to formulate their own opinion about the content.  There’s no one editorial source making decisions for readers.

It’s a new model for news which understands people are social beings.  No matter how good an editor is at determining what is and isn’t news, something influences those decisions.  Reporters from any outlet looking for a place to write without fear of being exposed should take a look at Allvoices’ incentive program, which allows anyone to register and write under their own or a screen name, with full privacy protection.