Center for Citizen Media

Here at the J-Lab Citizens’ Media Summit, a panel featuring Travis Henry of YourHub, Mary Lou Fulton of the Bakersfield Californian and Bakotopia, and Steve Yelvington of Morris Digital, which launched Bluffton Today.

One thing they have in common: they all developed their own software to run their sites — and now they’re selling that software. The social networking software developed for Bakotopia — which goes beyond letting users blog and add photos and gives them MySpace-like profile pages, and the ability to add other users to “friend lists” is now for sale. Morris Digital now sells the mdSPOTTED photo gallery software that enables reader-participants of Bluffton Today to upload photos to the site. And YourHub, a community platform in a box for newspapers, is now licensed in nearly a dozen markets.

My sense is that journalism is becoming a high-tech profession — not just in using the net as a distribution mechanism but developing new software. Which brings me to another point: J-schools should start thinking about technology transfer. Tech schools often make quite a bit of money licensing technologies developed in university labs. J-schools should start creating the next-generation technology platforms — and fund new innovations from licensing revenues.

The company fired Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson, “a little more than a month after he defied the media conglomerate’s demands for staff cuts that he suggested could damage the newspaper.”

No need to say much more than that…

Today at the J-Lab Citizens’ Media Summit, I gave a sneak preview of Placeblogger.com, which will contain a browsable directory of placeblogs across the US.

What’s a placeblog? A placeblog is a site dedicated to a particular geographical community — a county, town, city, or neighborhood.

Thus far, I’ve identified nearly 700 placeblogs in the US, and I think there’s quite a bit more. There are only ~19,000 incorporated places in the US, so having 1,000 placeblogs would mean that 5% of US communities would have a placeblog.

Placeblogger.com will provide a growing, browsable directory of placeblogs as well as a live aggregator of headlines from placeblogs across the nation. The project has had support from the Center for Citizen Media and Jay Rosen of Pressthink.com. Programming is being done by the folks at Click here for a closer look.

Don’t miss his Slashdot interview.

I’m in a conference room in Washington today with academics, several new-media entrepreneurs and folks from some major media organizations. We are here to discuss the changing nature of journalism, including how to preserve high-quality work while the business model seems to be crumbling.

An odd thing happened during the first session, in which I was the fourth of four speakers. The others, from Big Media organizations, basically said the things I’ve been saying for the past few years. My long-time talking points — including variations on “My readers know more than I do” and “Journalism is changing from a lecture into a conversation” — were in their own presentations.

I’m wondering whether to just declare victory and head on home…

Slowly, but surely, the traditional media are beginning to get it. In a new example, the Indianapolis Star has discovered a new source of expertise, namely its readers:

We rarely if ever ask for the public’s help when we research an important issue such as operation of the Marion County coroner’s office (now under investigation by the prosecutor’s office) or what’s happening with the county’s troubled juvenile detention center.

Overdue, of course. But what’s the old saying about better late than never?

Business Week Online: Unrepentant PayPerPost Gets Funding. The Orlando-based startup, which matches advertisers with bloggers willing to write about their products for $2 and up per post, will announce on Tuesday that it has netted $3 million in venture capital. The Series A round was led by Inflexion Partners, with Village Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson participating.

This operation’s practices are smelly in any journalistic sense, but at least there’s some transparency.

NY Times: False Accusation Sharpens Canadian Press Debate. A Canadian government commission faulted Canada, the United States and Syria for their treatment of the engineer, Maher Arar, whom it found to be completely innocent. The commission also found that several leading news organizations had been used by anonymous sources in a smear campaign against Mr. Arar, apparently to deflect attention from government and police bungling.

UPDATED

Baristanet has created a mashup map, chronicling housing changes in Montclair, New Jersey. Nice work, and it’s been noticed by the NY Times.

Update: The idea is not new. See Westport Now. (It’s still a cool project.)

Gary Kebbel at the Knight Foundation (which is funding one of our projects) wants anyone who’s interested in community journalism to consider applying for a grant. The program is called the “Knight Brothers’ 21st Century News Challenge,” and here are some details from an email:

The purpose of the challenge is to fund new community news projects that use the digital world to connect people in the real world.

The communities we’re concerned with are those that help people where they live and work. Online communities don’t need our help. Virtual communities spring up every day. But the idea of turning the web on its head to help people connect in real life does need our help.

In the 20th Century, the Knight Brothers owned newspapers that were the glue that held communities together. We’d like to know who or what will do that in the 21st Century?

What do we mean by “glue”? Great newspapers help communities become aware of their real situations. They inspire people to come up with new ideas to improve things. And they bestir people to pursue their true interests.
We want to help news organizations create products that engage a new generation of users, particularly because other companies already have. We want to make sure that innovative products are created that continue to serve the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth.

The competition will make awards in the following categories:

• Ideas
• Pilot projects and field tests
• Leadership projects
• Commercial investments
• Open submissions

The Challenge web site, with an online application form, is at www.newschallenge.org.

We will accept applications through Dec. 31, and hope to begin announcing winners in the spring of 2007. We will be assisted by outside reviewers, using a similar process as was used to select Knight Chairs.

We hope you will pass this information along to anyone who might have an idea or project that would qualify. This competition is open to anyone, not just the journalism community.

If you have questions about this, please refer them to newschallenge@knightfdn.org.