Ponderwell website developers made their final presentation to the city/county evaluation committee on Sept. 22, in their bid to secure a $120,000 three-year grant, which Mountain Xpress is also seeking. The narrative of their presentation appears on Ponderwell's site. Excerpts follow:
On Thursday, September 22, 2011, we went in to explain to a city/county committee exactly what it is we’d like to build for this community. What follows is essentially what we told them, edited for reading purposes (and without the jitters and gulps of deep breath which were part of the actual presentation). ...
Oh, and if you want to see the nifty handout we prepared, you can download it here: handout-final. If you haven’t read our grant proposal, you can find that here. ...
Michael Tracey Speaks: I’m going to talk about some of the technical aspects of how our site will work. The heart of our project is the Workflow, because it’s the Workflow interface that allows contributors to publish worthwhile media to the site. Think of it as a community driven virtual newsroom. When contributors log into the website, they will have access to Workflow, an online application that manages the flow of media into the the publicly viewable site.
This is what sets us apart from other standard media outlets and also other attempts at community journalism, the fact that we’ve come up with a solution that makes it quite simple to get quality, peer reviewed, media up on the site. I’m going to explain Workflow using an example from ImageAsheville, a website I created which is a small, cooperative photography showcase for our area. I’m choosing this photo, because it is a somewhat controversial photo, so we can see a more complex description of the editorial controls. ...
One of the most exciting features of our project is the Tipjar. What is really exciting about this is that it’s an innovative way to encourage positive community culture. The crew that created the article will get 50% of ad revenue for page views on their media. Readers can also use the donate feature right on the article to tip the contributors. Now, going back to our example story, if you are a member of the community and have $3.10 in your Tipjar at the moment, you are likely to tip fifty cents out of your Tipjar into the West Asheville arrest story, if you liked the reporting and photography. By donating directly from your Tipjar, the reporter, Bill Rhodes (the photographer), and the editor all get a 1/3 split of your fifty cents in their jar. They are more likely to tip others, after they see your tip and note of appreciation. In this way, we are using reciprocity to build community.
Another planned Tipjar feature is that upon withdrawal, our contributors will have the option to donate their earnings to a list of local charities instead of transferring the balance to their Paypal account. If they don’t know about the listed charities, they can look them up in our Local Directory.
Our project’s Local Directory isn’t like most of those dull, incomplete and non-factual lists online. It’s basically a landing page for each business or organization that indexes all previous news stories about that business. ...
Martin Haywood Speaks: ...Let me show you a video of Michael Hayes. He’s a big supporter of our idea, and he really gets it. The thing is that a community exists because it understands itself and talks about itself. If there are parts of the community that no one hears about and no one recognizes, then they’re excluded, they’re on the outside or the margins. But when a community can share what its members are passionate about and tell its stories, then it gets brought closer together. It can help itself. People feel included, part of a larger whole. There’s an awful lot of difference between someone coming in from above and “reporting” and someone telling a story that they’re involved in and really care about. ...
Amie Tracey Concludes: We’re not building a simple news or blog aggregator for our area; instead the core of our idea is a system which will inspire and support members of our community to feel they have the right and the ability to make their voice heard. We want to get people involved who may never have considered contributing to community journalism before, as well as the long-standing writers and photographers and videographers in this area.
This is what we do: we build complex systems that are simple to use for those who don’t happen to be tech geeks. And this idea is the core of what brought our company together: to be able to create a community journalism site that brings people together and empowers them to report on what they feel is important in their area. We know we can do it well, and we hope you will give us the opportunity.
Read the full article
On Thursday, September 22, 2011, we went in to explain to a city/county committee exactly what it is we’d like to build for this community. What follows is essentially what we told them, edited for reading purposes (and without the jitters and gulps of deep breath which were part of the actual presentation). ...
Oh, and if you want to see the nifty handout we prepared, you can download it here: handout-final. If you haven’t read our grant proposal, you can find that here. ...
Michael Tracey Speaks: I’m going to talk about some of the technical aspects of how our site will work. The heart of our project is the Workflow, because it’s the Workflow interface that allows contributors to publish worthwhile media to the site. Think of it as a community driven virtual newsroom. When contributors log into the website, they will have access to Workflow, an online application that manages the flow of media into the the publicly viewable site.
This is what sets us apart from other standard media outlets and also other attempts at community journalism, the fact that we’ve come up with a solution that makes it quite simple to get quality, peer reviewed, media up on the site. I’m going to explain Workflow using an example from ImageAsheville, a website I created which is a small, cooperative photography showcase for our area. I’m choosing this photo, because it is a somewhat controversial photo, so we can see a more complex description of the editorial controls. ...
One of the most exciting features of our project is the Tipjar. What is really exciting about this is that it’s an innovative way to encourage positive community culture. The crew that created the article will get 50% of ad revenue for page views on their media. Readers can also use the donate feature right on the article to tip the contributors. Now, going back to our example story, if you are a member of the community and have $3.10 in your Tipjar at the moment, you are likely to tip fifty cents out of your Tipjar into the West Asheville arrest story, if you liked the reporting and photography. By donating directly from your Tipjar, the reporter, Bill Rhodes (the photographer), and the editor all get a 1/3 split of your fifty cents in their jar. They are more likely to tip others, after they see your tip and note of appreciation. In this way, we are using reciprocity to build community.
Another planned Tipjar feature is that upon withdrawal, our contributors will have the option to donate their earnings to a list of local charities instead of transferring the balance to their Paypal account. If they don’t know about the listed charities, they can look them up in our Local Directory.
Our project’s Local Directory isn’t like most of those dull, incomplete and non-factual lists online. It’s basically a landing page for each business or organization that indexes all previous news stories about that business. ...
Martin Haywood Speaks: ...Let me show you a video of Michael Hayes. He’s a big supporter of our idea, and he really gets it. The thing is that a community exists because it understands itself and talks about itself. If there are parts of the community that no one hears about and no one recognizes, then they’re excluded, they’re on the outside or the margins. But when a community can share what its members are passionate about and tell its stories, then it gets brought closer together. It can help itself. People feel included, part of a larger whole. There’s an awful lot of difference between someone coming in from above and “reporting” and someone telling a story that they’re involved in and really care about. ...
Amie Tracey Concludes: We’re not building a simple news or blog aggregator for our area; instead the core of our idea is a system which will inspire and support members of our community to feel they have the right and the ability to make their voice heard. We want to get people involved who may never have considered contributing to community journalism before, as well as the long-standing writers and photographers and videographers in this area.
This is what we do: we build complex systems that are simple to use for those who don’t happen to be tech geeks. And this idea is the core of what brought our company together: to be able to create a community journalism site that brings people together and empowers them to report on what they feel is important in their area. We know we can do it well, and we hope you will give us the opportunity.
Read the full article
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By mat catastrophe
09/27/2011