NowPublic Blog

As I posted yesterday, NowPublic was chosen by Backbone and KPMG as one of Canada’s top new web companies.  Here is the write up.

If you’ve heard the term “citizen journalism” it’s because of companies like NowPublic. “This is a superbly thought-out and executed approach to crowdsourced news,” O’Connor Clarke said. “There are a lot of players in this space, but the way NowPublic have put things together, the way the site operates and their success in securing major partnerships with traditional media companies are all well worthy of recognition. NowPublic is a superb example of how 2.0 thinking can bridge the old and new media worlds to create something wholly new.” Other judges also raised the competition flag. Shuttleworth said there is “too much competition in this space” and Moffitt felt that “given its success already and its international scale, NowPublic could be creating an interesting form of new journalism, but it could also raise the hackles of well-moneyed competitors — but they have the head start.”

Source: backbonemag.com via mtippett

– You guys are gonna make me blush :)

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NowPublic has been identified by KPMG and Backbone Magazine as one of Canada’s top Internet companies.

(Toronto, July 15, 2008 ) - KPMG and Backbone magazine congratulate the top twenty winners of the first annual ‘PICK20′ Awards, the only national roundup of Canada’s up and coming Web 2.0 pioneers who are leading the 2.0 evolution of the Web. These new emergent online social platforms designed to link individuals to each other, are now increasingly being used to connect companies to both partners and clients.

Source: kpmg.ca via mtippett

Thanks to all our members who helped us get there. — Mike.

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You may have read today’s news about our acquisition of Truemors. For those of you not familiar with the site it is the brainchild of Guy Kawasaki. Guy is a legend in Silicon Valley as a best selling author, VC and one of the early players at Apple — among other things. I’m a big fan of his and am psyched to have him join our team as the Chairman of our advisory group.

In addition to the wealth of Guy’s experience we are also picking up a great group of editors and Trumorists to add to our expanding pool of citizen editors. Welcome to Annie and the rest of the group. We will be working hard to get you all integrated into the NowPublic editorial team and I think you will all be a fantastic edition to our news gathering capabilities.

As you’d expect, an acquisition like this in such a crazed space (those were the words of Michael Arrington) there has been a great deal of press attention. The AFP picked up the story as well as most of the Valley tech media. We’re getting lots of emails and thanks to everyone for their good words.

So day one of the merger seems to be going well. But as with any new success there are sometimes some growing pains. NowPublic is weathering the traffic barrage well but truemors is having a tough time staying online. This has provided our tech team with a good opportunity to get to know the Truemors servers a little earlier than we had planned ☺ Rest assured, Truemors is in good hands and we’ll have it back on his feet in no time. Stay tuned!

Michael.

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Tags: New York | San Francisco | Vancouver | NowPublic | citizen journalism | Journalism | Guy Kawasaki | Tech & Biz | truemors

From Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

NowPublic bought Truemors yesterday, and I became chairman of NowPublic’s board of advisors. You can read more details here. These are exciting times! Thank you everyone for contributing your stories to Truemors and for visiting our site.

Source: blog.guykawasaki.com

This is great news for NowPublic and we are very excited to be working more closely with Guy.

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Tags: New York | San Francisco | Vancouver | NowPublic | Guy Kawasaki | Tech & Biz | truemors

I’m not a huge believer in Alexa’s numbers but as I’m fond of saying, “in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king”.

Everytime we publish our monthly Techvibes Start-Up Indexes, there are always a few complaints about the use of Alexa and Compete data for ranking the websites of start-ups.

While we agree that it’s not an accurate measurement of website traffic, it is a great way to compare the traffic of different online properties as it creates a level playing field for metrics.

Our inaugural Canadian Start-Up Index on July 1st received the usual anti-Alexa comments, so we decided to consult with a recognized Internet information provider - comScore - to see how the top websites on our Canadian Index measure up.

Source: techvibes.com

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I recently did an interview with the Canadian Press.  Here is an excerpt from the final piece:

But the website’s founder, Michael Tippett, says objectivity is less important than ensuring readers have access to as many points of view as possible.

“(Just as) you come to respect a journalist who writes for a news organization because you recognize that news organization itself has credibility, you can look at the NowPublic members the same way,” says Tippett.

“It’s not necessary that one person is completely dispassionate about a subject. … We believe that if you have a number of different points of view represented in a story, that the truth will emerge.”

Sites like NowPublic can’t compete with the resources of traditional news outlets, says Tippett, and that’s not the point.

Rather, Tippett says the goal is to supplement - not replace - what’s already out there.

“Our view is that traditional media makes us better, and we can make traditional media better,” says Tippett, whose site recently inked a deal with The Associated Press to share eye-witness photos and videos.

“There are so many people in the world who are able to, in many cases, beat traditional media to the scene of emerging news.”

Source: canadaeast.com via mtippett

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Leonard Brody, founder of NowPublic, rejects the term ” target=”_blank”citizen journalism,” which has often been applied to his business. “What [our contributors] do is not journalism. We don’t call it that and never have.” In spite of that, he did construct NowPublic to serve as a new kind of media site. His initial goal, he said, was, “Let’s go build Reuters 2.0.”

NowPublic is a site about current events, and it is powered by its users. Brody feels that, “Journalism is an art form. What we are is an army of eyes and ears.” So Brody’s army of contributors aren’t known for creating original reporting in the way we usually think about it. “The fantasy of the 300 word post doesn’t exist.” Rather, his contributors perform two other functions.

Source: webware.com via mtippett

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Headline: Citizen Journalism site NowPublic adds new features to “increase credibility and trust”

According to a press release from PRNewswire, the citizen journalism website NowPublic has added three news features, which include  “a member ranking system, a presence stream and a news dashboard.”

Source: editorsweblog.org

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Headline: NowPublic - Now with Trust and Twitter

Vancouver-based news bookmarking and citizen journalism site NowPublic relaunched its website earlier this month and added a few new features that Mashable picked up on today. The new site design is less conservative that it’s predecessor and better reflects the irreverence and personality of NowPublic’s members.

Source: techvibes.com

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Headline: CITIZEN-JOURNALISM SITE RELAUNCHES WITH NEW FEATURES

NowPublic.com, a leading Vancouver-based “citizen-journalism” site that allows users from around the world to post their comments, photos and video of news events, has relaunched its website with new features. Among them is the ranking of contributors to the site on the basis of their activity level, so that other users can gauge how trustworthy their contributions are likely to be.

Source: theglobeandmail.com

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