Thanks to everyone who noticed the pillow-soft launch of ReportingOn.com in the only link in my Resolutions post, and especially to those of you who commented, e-mailed, tweeted, or blogged about the project.
At the moment, it’s just an URL, an idea, and a comment thread, but it’s building momentum, and that’s pleasant.
A few thoughts:
- I’m not doing this for any sort of financial gain, although I may get a grant or two to help pay the server bills, if there ever are any.
- I am hoping to use this as my Master’s Project to finish the graduate program I’m (still) enrolled in at San Jose State University.
- I’m no one’s competition. I’m doing this because I want to, because I think it’s necessary. If it’s successful, I’ll be happy; if no one ever uses it, I will have had a good hunk of practice at trying to do this sort of thing, and hopefully learned quite a bit in the process.
Initial feedback on the idea:
“Ryan’s idea, as I understand it, is to take the new found obsession with instant conversation (and gratification) and aggregate these conversations in order to improve local reporting.”
“I’m a competitive being, as most journalists are, but the purpose of our profession is to inform. If you don’t want to be scooped, don’t give away the scoop. We must continue to adapt how we do our job to better inform readers and this site would be a great way to help do so.”
As the idea evolves, I’m thinking strongly that the Twitter tie-in and a Facebook application are the two places to start.
Dave Cohn is right: Herding a boatload of journalists – pro or amateur – over to a redundant social network feels forced. I’m not going to encourage reporters to seek out their sources in popular social networks in one breath, then ask them to join another network in the next.
Or maybe I will, I don’t know yet. Tell me, what would you want out of this?
My basic thought, the tagline for the site, service, app = The backchannel for your beat. I want this to be a place/way for reporters in far flung places to talk to each other – quickly and relatively publicly. A rising tide lifts all bylines. Seriously.
A wildcard: Poynter Groups?
I’m not sure the Poynter idea is exactly what I’m picturing — actually, I know it isn’t, but I still think it’s a good idea. Is Poynter the best possible place for a social network for journalists?
Many questions. Answer what you can. Thanks.
Comments
4 responses to “ReportingOn.com”
Ryan, tell us how this is different from Publish2 (now in beta).
@Mindy – I’ll let Scott Karp talk more about the differences and similarities, and how the pieces of Publish2 and ReportingOn could fit together.
See his comment on Dave’s post for more.
The basic difference, as I see it:
Publish2 is a tool for journalists to bookmark stories, research, clips, and follow each other’s links, comments, and tagging activity. Its focus (at the moment) is on *The Link*. Find links, save links, read links, follow links, subscribe to links.
ReportingOn will focus on *The Conversation*. Ask questions, get answers, in public, at a rapid rate.
I think both are good, and necessary, and useful to journalists, and complement each other well.
Thanks! That’s good.
Not sure if you care to go this way, but on News Videographer I’ve placed ads that earn back my server costs. It’s just Google Ads and an Amazon store. But it pays the bills.