Is Your Post a $100,000 Hit?

Allvoices citizen reporters have the ability to make money from posting breakaway, original reports that will be a Hit and generate a lot of buzz and traffic. The new Hit Incentive only applies to an individual post or report and is only valid for a period of 15 days from the original posting date.

A quick summary of the Hit incentive program is:

Page views	Incentive payment
100,000 plus (within 15 days of posting)	$250
1 Million plus (within 15 days of posting)	$5,000
10 Million plus (within 15 days of posting)	$100,000

 

For more details, please visit http://www.allvoices.com/incentive

The main reason we are offering the Hits program is that we realize that our citizen reporter, you, produce content that generates a lot of buzz, but may not get rewarded for it. For example, the picture of a plane crashing into the Hudson River that had a link posted on Twitter got millions and millions of views, but the poster did not make any money. The women who posted the image said that if she knew of a site that would pay money for her photo, she would have posted it on that site instead.

We at Allvoices want such content from our citizen reporters and we want you to make money if you do post such breakaway content.

Thank you for your support, for evangelizing the site, and for making Allvoices the fastest growing people-generated news network in the world!

Note: There are no changes to the existing Build Your Allvoices Brand Incentive Program, which continues to offer our community opportunities to earn cash rewards for contributing on a consistent basis.

The Allvoices Team

 

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.

Allvoices Unveils New Layout and Design!

Today we deployed a new layout and design on Allvoices, and we’ve made the site better, faster and stronger! Our whole team has worked hard and is dedicated to improving the site for our global community. We take feedback from our users very seriously so we can produce the highest quality product to give our community the best experience with our content and platform. Feel free to email feedback or questions to community@allvoices.

We enthusiastically welcome original content and opinion contributions and comments on our site from all our users! Thank you for being a part of our community!

Allvoices: Faster, Better & Stronger!

The last several weeks have been very busy here at Allvoices HQ.  The whole team is working hard and is dedicated to improving the Allvoices experience for our growing and valued global community.

One of our main focuses is making the site as fast as possible.  We are are tuning many areas of the system to make it faster, better, and stronger.  This includes lots of under-the-hood fixes and a revision to the site layout and design.

The new design will be released in the coming weeks.  The new layout will make the experience faster and easier to find the news that matters to you whether it’s local news, latest cellphone contributions or global news shaping the world.  Stay tuned for new developments.

We look forward to seeing your original content and opinion contributions and comments on our site!

Incentive Plan Gets Better!

Since the incentive program started in August, it been pretty popular. However, we believe we set the initial payment bar much higher than we should have. So… We are lowering it.
 
You now have the choice between getting paid US$100 for every 10,000 page views, US$1,000 for every 100,000 page views or $10,000 for every million page views. If you are not already registered in the incentive program, go sign up now!

Get your friends to register!

If you have friends who aren’t members of the allvoices community, now is the time to get them enrolled. For every 20 people you get to enroll and sign up for the incentive program, you get either a Flip video camera or a check for US$150. How do we know you referred someone? Have them fill in your name or your ID on the “How did you find out about allvoices” question on the registration form. Once you hit 20 referrals, we will contact you for your mailing address and ship your camera or your check off to you.
 
Remember – there is plenty of money in the incentive program, so get as many people involved as you can. The more people out there making themselves heard, the better the site will be!

What if I am already over 10,000 views?

If you have already gone over the 10,000 views limit, we know it. We will be sending you a note next week asking you to complete some paperwork so that we can start processing your check. If you want to get a jump on the process, you can fax completed copies of IRS forms http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf and/or http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8ben.pdf. Fax these forms to us at the fax number in our contact information. You can also email the completed and signed forms to incentive@allvoices.com

We know that the extra cash will come in handy right now – so get out there and get reporting!

The official verbiage

1. for every ten thousand (up to one million) Page Views (as defined below) of User Contributions, User Reports, and User Submissions submitted by You, allvoices shall pay you one hundred dollars (US $100.00) (subtracting transaction processing costs); or
2. for every one hundred thousand (up to one million) Page Views (as defined below) of User Contributions, User Reports, and User Submissions submitted by You, allvoices shall pay you one thousand dollars (US $1,000.00) (subtracting transaction processing costs); or
3. for the first one million Page Views of Your User Contributions, User Reports, and User Submissions, allvoices shall pay You ten thousand dollars (US $10,000.00) (subtracting transaction processing costs) (each of (i) and (ii) a “Promotional Payment”).

Where does news happen?

Ok – that question has a fairly obvious answer: News happens everywhere. So, why ask? Because there seems to be some confusion when people submit news about the location of the news.

When you submit a news report, you are asked to fill in the place where the news “took place.” That answer is NOT where you were when you reported the news. It IS where the news itself happened.

Let’s look at some examples:

I am in Mesa AZ. I want to report about a change at the allvoices offices. The office is in San Francisco. I reported it as  San Francisco | CA | USA.

User reported on the verdict for Senator Stevens. She is normally in San Francisco, so that is the location she put down for the report. The trial was in Washington DC.  The events happened in DC and in Alaska. Talking to the user, I learned that she  saw the report as her opinion on the trial. She reported it  as San Francisco | CA | USA.

User reported on the New York City Council’s decision to allow Michael Bloomberg to run for another term. The decision happened in New York, the user is in Sioux Falls, SD. She reported the news as  New York  City | NY | USA.

User reported a state by state list of websites for results. User is in Berkeley CA. The lists are of web sites created across the US. He reported the news as Berkeley | CA | USA.

User reported on the first peek at Windows 7. User is in Chennai India. The story was reported elsewhere with a location of Springfield, MA. The presentation was done at a Microsoft conference in LA (PDC 08). He reported the story as Springfield | MA | USA.

Let me ask you…

Which of these locations are correct and which are incorrect? In a perfect world, all news would be reported as happening at the location of the news. But, if the piece is opinion, should that still apply?

The way I locate news is simple: I start with where the news happened. If my piece is opinion based, I then think “Will people look for this where I am? Or will they look for it where the actual news happened?” For me, the answer is almost always where the original news happened.

There are exceptions.

• If an event is web based, I place it where the person initiating the event is located. If I can’t determine that, then I put it where I am.

• If an event is happening in many places at once, I will try to pick one location. If I can’t, then I locate it where I am.

Why is this important?

One of the things that makes allvoices unique is the ability to find news by location, topic, reporter, keywords, or tags. If the location isn’t right, it makes it harder for people to find the news you report. If they can’t find it, they won’t read it. If they won’t read it, they won’t know what is important to you.

The next step is up to you…

Do you agree with my approach? How do you locate your news? Let us know.

 

Over 25 articles to choose from!

I can tell we are getting closer to the election every day. There are over 25 choices for today’s Voice of the Day selection. The stories range from national to local and from fact to opinion pieces. There are some radical opinions in today’s stuff, so read it all.

I am not going to create a poll with this many choices in it. I am going to ask you to vote with your clicks. Check out the articles by searching the site for “elections” and voice up the ones you like. If we haven’t got a clear choice by noon tomorrow, I will take the top 5 and create a poll with them.

My opinion…

I don’t want to be the one who picks the Voice of the Day everyday. That said, there are some pieces today that I think are very well thought out and deserve your eyes. Many of these are from community members who showed up over the weekend, some of them are from people who have been with the site since the begining.

• Community member Kuldeep has several pieces in the running today. Most of them don’t have much text, but they have great videos and images. Check them out from his profile.
• Community member maxwells_deamon has contributed their first piece today. It is about the defense of marriage bills and how complicated the issue really is. It isn’t getting a lot of views as of this point, but I am hoping that changes. It is a local, state, and national issue that effects many.
• Community member Amra1 asks us all to consider If there is something wrong with being Muslim in the US. Amra1 is another person whose pieces are always well thought out and make me think. Be sure to check it out.
• Roxannehas hit her stride today as well, digging up some information about Governor Palin and a skate park. If you believe in kids being taught the right things, you might want to read the piece and learn how Gov. Palin tried to stop a group of youth from making a difference.
• Lest we forget Mr. MarcusCato, he has a great piece as well. He was the first on allvoices to report that Sen. Obama appears to have gone over 306 electoral votes.
• Want to read up on abortion rights? Community member allenels joins the conversation with their piece: A letter to pro-life supporters. Check it out. First published on salon.com, this piece is very powerful.

And that only touches on today’s stories. Be sure to check them all out. Find your favorite (one of these or another) and let us know why you like it. We want to hear from you!

Help Choose the First Voice of the Day!

Welcome to the first Voice of the Day poll for allvoices. We want to know whose article should be today’s winner. If you are looking for great content on last night’s debate, this is the place for you. By the way, I am guessing that most days we won’t have as much national election news as we did today. In order for that to happen, some of you are going to have to head over to the site and report on local issues and elections.

That said, there was no way I could pick between today’s entries for the voice of the day. Since WordPress just announced a polling addition to the blogging engine, I am going to use this blog piece to have you help me decide who is today’s voice of the day.

 

 

There were 7 stories submitted today that met the criteria of original, thought provoking, interesting pieces on election issues. Each of these stories is eligible for today’s t-shirt.

I have purposefully removed the author’s names from the list of articles. If you want to vote on an article based on who wrote it, you will need to check each article out individually. (Which I hope you do anyway!) To help choose the winner, read the articles and then vote in the poll below.

 

Did McCain have a ‘Dukakis Moment’ on stage after 3rd debate?

Hempstead :: NY :: USA | Oct 16, 2:28 PM | Political News

Much has been made of Sen. John McCain’s body language on stage during all three presidential debates, but as this framegrab taken immediately after the final debate Oct. 15 Hempstead, N.Y., shows, McCain finally outdid himself. And he may have…

Obama fends off McCain’s spirited onslaught

Hempstead :: NY :: USA | Oct 16, 6:19 AM | Political News

After the third US presidential debate held at Hofstra University on October 15, the Democrats are heaving a sigh of relief that Senator John McCain did not score the knockout punch he needed in order to wipe out his rival…

28 Million Hate DVD Distributed in Key Swing States! (Video)

Denver :: CO :: USA | Oct 16, 5:52 AM | Political News

A DVD that plays on American’s fear that Obama is a “closet” Muslim has been distributed with 70 newsapers to millions in the key swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Colorado. Entitled “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West”, the…

Ohio Plumber Drain’s McCain’s Pipe Dream for President 

Columbus :: OH :: USA | Oct 16, 1:26 AM | Political News

Case of Ohio Tradesman Unclogs Issues on Small Business Help, Taxes and Health Care OhioNewsBureau with John Michael Spinelli Columbus, Ohio: When the curtain came down on the third and final presidential debate of 2008, any pipe dreams Arizona Sen….

McCain throws baseball signals, Obama stays the course, voters remain … 

New York City :: NY :: USA | Oct 15, 9:53 PM | Political News

What was significant about the last presidential debate between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain? Finally, a debate that got to the heart of many issues people needed and said they wanted to hear about, but the results from Independent…

Put your punditry where the money is – Predictify’s $100,000 Election …

Berkeley :: CA :: USA | Oct 15, 7:28 PM | Political News

So you think you know electoral politics, eh? Then you might want to enter the Predicty/Rock the Vote $100,000 Election Showdown. Punditty did, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to finish in the money. Then again, he was pretty sure…

Blogger Railroaded for Exposing Sarah Palin’s Maternal Negligence 

New York City :: NY :: USA | Oct 15, 4:15 PM | Political News

According to The Hill , Susan Bruce , a campaign blogger for New Hampshire Representative Carol Shea-Porter, was recently forced to resign after she raised the legitimate concern about Sarah Palin’s abysmal public treatment of her children, including her down…

 

By the way – You may have noticed that most of those are expressing the same view. That isn’t the goal here. We want a diverse set of views. If you haven’t been posting because you are afraid we are biased toward one end of the spectrum or the other, please start expressing your views. allvoices is the place for you to express your views. We want to know what you think and what is important to you. Maybe all of tomorrow’s suggestions will be McCain backers….

The allvoices map

Have you ever wondered why the map is at the top of the landing page for allvoices? It has two purposes. The obvious one is that we are a global site and have people around the world reporting the news. We want you to see the spread of the news for the area of the world covered by the current view. Change the view and you change the scope of the news. But if you were to check it out closely, you would find that the map also is a functioning part of the site. It allows you to see thumbnail views of the top news stories and to navigate around the news reported on the site.

The dots…

Have you ever noticed the blue and brown circles on the map? Those circles show you the locations of the top news items for your current view. If you usually look at the contributed news on the site, you will see blue circles. If you change to all news, the map gets populated with an additional set of brown circles. Those represent the other news of the day that we have found around the web. These are the items that we use to validate your contributed news.

Each of those circles changes from a number to a star and back about every second or two. The numbers are a live report of the order of the news items on the current page.  Those circles are more than just a visual indicator. They also allow you to see a brief synopsis of the news item.

Story Pop up from allvoices map

If you click on the More button, you will go to the main page for that news report. Click the x in the upper right, and the synopsis closes. Click a circle and the next one opens.

The other purpose…

Like the circles, the visual clues of the map itself are only half of its purpose. The map’s other purpose is to allow you to navigate the news of the world. If you double click on a location, your location will change to there. If you scroll in and out, the zoom level changes.

And as these changes happen, the dots and the headlines shown for your current view will also change.

Now, I know that you don’t just want to READ about something like this – you want to see it in action. So… check out the video below – it is a quick lesson on the magic of the map! (FYI: I have uploaded the video to YouTube as well, but it is taking a very long time to convert. If it ever converts, you will find it here.)

 

 

Click this image to see a video on how to use the map! (It will take two clicks to get to the video.