Axel Springer Kicking Off News Paywall With iPhone Apps | mocoNews

The fight between web portals, search engines, news “aggregators” and the mainstream media is intensifying by the day.  Just a couple of weeks after News Corp’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch referred to the former method of news delivery as “theft,” come announcements by the publishers of Variety (sorry, Wall Street Journal article behind a paywall), as well as Axel Springer,  that they’ll be instituting paywalls for their content.

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.

World Entertainment News Network (WENN) to Syndicate Allvoices Celbrity Pics

“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.”

Riddle: When are Journalists Citizens?

Answer: Never, if you work for The Washington Post.

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.

The Twitter News Bureau Launches

There’s no denying the power of Twitter’s immediacy and ability to capture snapshots of news breaking from anywhere, anytime.  It can be powerful stuff. But *usually* those snapshots stand alone and unframed by any useful context, relevancy or even the ability (beyond what’s said in 140 characters) to tell you where the news is from.

just took the wraps off our new system for bringing context and credibility to Twitter, while using Twitter to help allvoices bring more, additional relevant information to its citizen reports, as well as data for allvoices’ “Breaking” and “Popular” tabs.

We’re the only citizen journalism site able to take virtually any data source and integrate it with relevant citizen contributions to the site; Twitter is just an example (albeit an important example) of this ability.

BNET’s David Weir has a nice analysis of our news here

editorsweblog.org also covers us

and Journalism.co.uk writes us up here.

News release below….check out the Twitter feeds on the report pages and please let us know what you think!

ALLVOICES ADDS CONTEXT, CREDIBILITY TO NEWS-RELATED TWITTER DATA

Global Citizen Media Hub Integrates Tweets Related to Breaking and Popular Stories; Creates Enhanced Journalists “LiveStream” for News Addicts

SAN FRANCISCO — September 14, 2009 — Allvoices, Inc. (www.allvoices.com), the first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere, today became the only citizen media outlet to integrate live, event- and location-specific Twitter data into its citizen reports.  Live Twitter data assists Allvoices’ comprehensive verification process with vetting stories for authenticity by providing additional context and ranking reports in Allvoices’ “Breaking” and “Popular” categories.  Users now enjoy an enhanced, real-time view of everything happening in the locations, around the events and to the people reported on the site.

Allvoices’ uses a combination of community input and algorithms to vet contributed reports.  As soon as one is submitted, the system “pivots” around the report and immediately pulls related content from mainstream news and user generated sources like videos, blogs and pictures to create a full, 360 degree view of the news. Integrating live tweets makes Allvoices’ ranking system even more real-time, adding context and a comprehensive understanding of circumstances surrounding the event.

Allvoices has leveraged Twitter data in several distinct areas of the site:

· Allvoices displays the latest tweets for locations covering every city, country and regional landing pages created from citizen and mainstream reports  about a location

· For citizen  reports, Allvoices displays tweets related to the report to build a stronger case for the report’s authenticity and credibility, while adding more context to the report itself

· For mainstream news, Allvoices aggregates real-time tweets that discuss the same news to show users what conversations are occurring around those reports.

· Tweets now provide input for Allvoices’ ranking algorithms.  The algorithms determine what shows up at the top of the “Breaking” and “Popular” tabs for each location, city, country and regional landing page. Live tweets add another dimension to Allvoices ability to vet and rank reports, which includes community validation and numerous machine-based heuristics.

· In addition to integrating Twitter’s data into contributed reports, Allvoices has created a separate, unique page which aggregates hundreds reporters’ tweets, along with any stories and events they may relate to on Allvoices.  News “addicts” can find this site at www.allvoices.com\tweets.

A recent study conducted by research firm Pear Analytics found that forty percent of tweets are categorized as “Pointless Babble” (Pear’s term), which is indicative of the difficulty people have finding tweets with real news content.   However recent events, like those just after Iran’s recent election, have shown Twitter to be indispensable for reporting news as it breaks, but lacks situational context, the ability to pinpoint location and in some cases, credibility. Allvoices solves this by vetting Twitter’s information and wrapping it into a news report’s “big picture.”

“We feel Allvoices has broken ground here by pulling the news gems from Twitter’s massive live stream and integrating that specific, relevant content into the reports contributed to our citizen media hub,”  said Dr. Sanjay Sood, chief technical officer, Allvoices.com.  Twitter alone as a source for news doesn’t have the ability to tell a full story.  Allvoices delivers the full story for a report plus a deeper understanding of the conversations going on around that event.  What’s great about the system we’ve built is that it can take virtually any data source and apply it to user-generated and mainstream news reports“

Allvoices is the first citizen media outlet using technology to validate user generated content, the lack of which has been the biggest barrier to the mainstream adoption of citizen media.  Allvoices’ ability to vet user-generated content against mainstream sources, as well as other citizen-generated reports instantly provides validity and a measure of credibility to citizen reports, and gives users a level of comfort when consuming this information.

Exciting New Allvoices Features Released!

Although I haven’t posted development updates recently, the Allvoices’ team has been hard at work improving performance and adding features that our amazing community has been asking for.  Here are just a few of the new features rolled out over the past few weeks:

• New Categories:  We’ve added a few more categories (Green, Health, and Travel), based on your requests
• Tweet Widget:  You’ll notice that many of our pages have a real-time stream of Tweets related to the theme of the page!
• Related Tags:  You will now see related tags to help you find more interesting new content
• Re-hauled Notification:  You now have more control over what type of notification emails Allvoices sends to you.  Check out your notification settings under “Edit profile”.
• Better Spam Detection:  We have implemented a new spam filter to prevent spam comments from being posted on the site
• Report Credibility:  We’ve improved the algorithm and added better messaging. Visit http://www.allvoices.com/help/report_credibilty for more information!
• Better Performance:  The entire team has been working tirelessly to bring you the best and fastest citizen reporting experience on the Web.
• Stay Logged in:  Now you can stay logged into Allvoices.  Simply check “Keep me logged in” and you are all set!

We are working on another major release that will go out before the month’s end.  It will have lots of cool new features aimed at fostering our growing global community.

As always, feel free to drop us an e-mail (support@allvoices.com) and let us know what you think!

Thank you,

Sanjay Sood
CTO
Allvoices, Inc.

Allvoices Performance Issue Resolved

Some of you may have experienced some slow performance over the past week or so.  We’ve tracked down the issue and resolved it this morning.  The site is much happier and your experience will be much improved.  With over 2.7M visitors last month, we’re working hard to make sure that the site is fast and responsive for our growing global audience.

Feel free to drop us an email (support@allvoices.com) to let us know how things are working out for you.

The Allvoices Team

New Features Released!

The development team here at Allvoices released an exciting and major update to the site last week!  We’ve all been working very hard to provide great new features aimed at helping our users connect to their content and to Allvoices’ contributors and other communities.  The major new features include:

• Twitter Integration:  You can now connect your Allvoices profile to your Twitter account.  Every time you create a report, we’ll automatically tweet it for you.  Check out your profile page to get started.
• Contact Importing:  New users can invite their email contacts to join Allvoices.  This functionality will be available to our existing users in the coming weeks.
• Global Reach:  You can now see a country-by-country breakdown of who is viewing your content.  Simply place your cursor over the Reach label (to the right of page views) on anyone’s profile page, and you will see the top countries that have been viewing the user’s content.
• New Incentive Program:  On April 30, 2009 we launch a new incentive program.  Details can be found on the Incentive Program page.
• New Search Page Design:  The search result page has been redesigned to make it even easier to find the reports, people, and users that matter to you!

Feel free to email questions, issues or feedback to support@allvoices.com.

Thank you,
Sanjay Sood
CTO
Allvoices, Inc.

Allvoices Provides Citizen Journalist with a Global Incentive to Showcase Their Work, Make Money

New Model for User-generated Content Features Aggressive Compensation for Contributors and Hyper-targeted Opportunities for Advertisers

SAN FRANCISCO — May 6, 2009 — Allvoices, Inc. (www.allvoices.com), the first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere, launched a new incentive program and site enhancements designed to reward excellence in citizen journalism with a unique model for consumer-generated media.  Built on the success of the company’s first program, Excellence in Citizen Journalism, the Build Your Allvoices Brand initiative rewards contributors from around the globe with cash and creates the first platform where news consumers, citizen journalists and advertisers engage around high-quality user-generated content. 

Along with the new incentive for citizen journalists to develop their personal brand, Allvoices has added features to help contributors quickly build a large audience.  Starting today, registered contributors’ posts to Twitter will update in real time on their Allvoices profile pages, and contributors’ stories published on Allvoices will automatically be posted to their Twitter accounts.  An opt-in email feature has also been launched to send contributors’ published articles to their email contact lists.  This combination of features and incentive are just part of an exciting new model for citizen journalism which helps advertisers and contributors make money through the development of:

Individual Brands (Persona) – Using today’s technology, journalist brands don’t need to be anchored at traditional media firms.  Quality and originality does matter, and Allvoices provides the platform for contributors to showcase their unique talents.  Through the power of the platform, each individual brand attracts a different mix of audience, fans and even advertisers.  Premium advertisers will support premium brands, and Allvoices ensures the right advertisers are placed next to the brands they would support.  This pairing is enabled through an algorithm in the system which ranks report authenticity and contributor credibility.

Tools to Build Brand – Allvoices is a unique platform for sharing news and opinion.  It provides instant exposure, credibility, engagement and an unprecedented opportunity to build an audience.  Contributors can build either a micro- or mega-community with which to engage on the site by utilizing all the site features.  The contributor level and rate at which they are paid is determined by their ability to generate quality content, effectively engage on the site and extend their reach to a global audience.  Contributor reach is measured right on their profile pages, details their level of influence by country and is viewed by mousing over the small globe labeled “reach” under their contributor profile picture. 

An Innovative Approach – Allvoices is the first participatory journalism site to bring readers, contributors and advertisers together in a true consumer generated media environment.  Contributors get paid based on the strength of the brand they build; advertisers benefit from a true Return of Engagement with readers and contributors in niche or broad categories, and the model scales to meet any level of content or traffic demands. 

Citizens, aspiring journalists, writers, bloggers, students, photographers and videographers from around the world are encouraged to participate in the cash incentive program which started on May 1, 2009 and ends on December 31, 2009.  Contributors will be rewarded based on the quality of their submissions, response from the community and strength of their brand, and are ranked in the following three categories:

Read the full release

Allvoices to Adapt Twitter’s Method to Gather Global News

As Twitter ascends to the stratosphere as the communications channel of choice – and there’s no stopping it now - media types can’t be blamed for wishing there were some easier ways to separate out, say, what our dear fellow Twitterers may have had for breakfast, from significant breaking news stories.

Now, there are ways, involving tags and such, but the barrier to entry is so far proving daunting to multi-tasking journalists and bloggers. What I, for one, have been wishing out loud about for a while now would be a Twitter News Channel.

So, along comes Allvoices.com today with an interesting approch to this very issue. You may recall that we profiled Allvoices here a couple of months back. The company is run by a dynamic Pathan-American, Amra Tareen, and its mission is to create a global community for sharing news from anywhere in the world in a multimedia format that dispalys multiple points of view – “free from the traditional editorial oversight and censorship characteristic of global media organizations.”

Today, Allvoices announced that it now can accept a 160-character text news submissions, and algorithmically build a rich media context around that small snippet of information – think of it as a news headline submitted by anybody, anywhere that triggers a multimedia event page supplied by Allvoices.

A particularly intriguing aspect of this service is its global nature. According to the company, around 80 percent of the globe is now covered by SMS access numbers, so users can text in a news submission from almost anywhere.

Read the full article written on BNET by David Weir April 15th, 2009 @ 12:58 pm

Citizen journalism hub Allvoices adds mobile reporting

Citzen journalism hub Allvoices has announced that it is making it “even easier” for its citizen participants to contribute, as they can now send in news via an SMS. The Allvoices system will immediately begin to build a report page around the submission, searching both mainstream media and user-generated content, including picture and video. The system will also send a report code back to the contributor so that more content can be provided to the same report using the code.

“Mobile device technology has reached a point in its evolution where text reports and media are of comparable quality to data delivered via a PC or media shot with dedicated cameras,” explained Allvoices CEO Amra Tareen. She added that she believes “it’s becoming increasingly clear that people want breaking news delivered immediately, and with little editorial bias or interference.” In the US, contributors can send an SMS to ‘VOICES,’ and international participants can find an SMS number on the Allvoices site.

Allvoices gathers contributions from its members and places their reports alongside aggregated stories from mainstream media, distinguishing amateur journalism from professional by colour and title. There is no human editing, rather it is carried out by Allvoices’ proprietary algorithms, which assess reliability of the content sent in. Members, however, can rate or flag content. As newspapers begin to struggle to provide the same level of coverage that they have been for decades, is this a chance for citizen journalists, armed with phones and cameras, to flourish?

Posted on editorsweblog.org by Emma Heald on April 16, 2009 at 8:29 AM