All-participatory local news
Total cost of project including all sources of funding:
$250,000Expected amount of time to complete project:
1 year - 1 1/2 yearThe project intend to develop a new economic model for a local geographic community news web site, which can be ruled by just one journalist. If this model works it resolves the major problem of a local news web site: economic sustainability.
Content comes for all over where: people, business stores, schools, local public agencies and professional journalists. An editor edits the information that comes by phone, fax, letters, sms messages, others news sites and blogs.
We plan to give small business the opportunity to have a space for their products, reducing the prices. A lot of ads stimulate the competition and I think this site can be the space for that. Also, people must have a simple way of getting their ads. They can send it as they want (sms, e-mail, letter) and they can pay it with a credit system.
It pretends also to have a social active role, giving online journalism training to students and elderly but active people, as a way to have active participants.
The web site has news but also historical and other information that serves people on that area, like hospital schedules. People must feel this space as theirs, and not as a distant news site. But for foreign people work as a “corporate“ portal of that geographical area
How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities?
All contributions, all information
Target and implementation area
Bairro de Alvalade (Alvalade’s Neighborhood) locates in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital (see here http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=pt-PT&msa=0&ll=38.780852,-9.06...). It has 34.217 inhabitants, according to the last Cencus (2001). It is a all new urban zone, comparing to the rest of the city. In mid-40’s, the Portuguese government start building the one that remains until today the greatest urbanism project of the country. In 1952, it was done. The new Portuguese middle-class families start to live on a all-new urban concept, that among other things defends that no house can be longer than 200 meters from a school and it has to have community spaces for gardening. So, people who lives there are this ones: elderly people and the sons of the first living families. But the neighborhood had been bought by young people, with a good economic power – the district is one of the most expensive for real estate in Portugal. And nowadays, you have what you can see in the last Census: the two greatest levels of education are graduates and primary school.
Distribution model
In order to get to this heterogenic target, bairrodealvalade.pt must work on a multiplatform strategy. The primordial is web, because is the simple to use and the only one that get the population envolved. We figure that we have the problem of eldery people don’t use as much Internet as young people. We intend to have workshops where we teach how to contribute to the web site. Nobody pays so much attention to the area where lives than eldery people. We also intend to have a strong use of Twitter as a way to communicate in both directions. Also, we’ll have a close attention to the phone use as a mean to get to newsroom by our information providers. Bairrodealvalade.pt will have also a basic newspaper with a strong connection to the web site. This newspaper will resume the best news of the site and will be distributed in the direct mail marketing distribution model.
For the young people I intend to use mobile devices and twittering. If old people are the greatest news providers, high-school students can be the imputers to new technologies. In site, and with the help of IT or native language teachers I intend to engage them into the website. If they start to use the site as a social network and micro-news provider it would be a success.
Editorial specifications
Drupal is the technology to use. The site will have two main information columns, in a 2-1 space relation. One is for the news content, provided by a professional journalist and by the citizens that would like to participate. This content can be text, photos or video and it has to follow the politics of the site. Editor edits all information that not come from the newsroom (himself). Micro-news and other type of information can be provided in this space. It appears as blog-type chronological order. All news can be tagged to the web-site sections: Social, Culture, Politics, Business, Community, Events. People can go to that sections and follow what has been posted.
The other column is for business posting. Business companies can post their news with two lines maximum about their recent offers. If someone click on that post, it will be directed to a personal weblog inside the site or their personal site, as they want. This posting is paid by a fee with the right to 10 posts. It could have post-pone editorial cuts if it justified.
The main page will always have a link to the historical/institutional page of that area. Here, with the help of database programming and interactive mapping it will be created the reference website about the area. It´s a voluntary project with the brand of the citizen media site just to provide more information about the territory than the day-to-day news.
In the end, we'll have three content providers : journalists, citizens and business people.
The three types of content don´t have hierarchy . Journalists make their work; citizens send the news by sms, e-mail or phone; business people have a fee and they have the right to post to the site.
It provides all kind of information needed for the lives of the people - includes historical and administrative facts as supermarket campaigns.
We plan to cover the area as it never happens with any other area. If a baby born in some street, we notice it. Other approach is the memory of the places: we pretend to seek for the stories of this area, with the protagonists and their material (photos, objects, voices), like we're producing a documentary. And, of course, classic journalism (breaking news and facts coverage) is not forgotten.
How is your idea innovative? (New or different from what already exists.)
Economic support for own job
What it is
Bairroalvalade.pt is a hyperlocal citizen media site who engages the community with their own neighborhood. In the implementation area there are no media, as it happens in all Lisbon. People need to know about their living area. This project intend to be a platform where it can be found all information about area: present and historical.
So, it is a local news website, but also a digital media place where people can publish their news and business offers. By their news, I mean the news that matters to him/her and to readers. By business offers, I mean exactly that: people who have a small business store, can place his offers, like coffee shop daily menus. This is the front-page information. But in a long-term perspective, bairrodealvalade.pt would be the multimedia educational web site about that area. Doing this, it would have a cultural/institutional purpose by having some space to historical and life information.
Business model
It gives economic support to a enterpreineur journalist enabling he or she to create his own business in a chosen area.
We think at the business model not only on the incomes, but also on expenses, which means, information production.
The advertise model works like this: you can have a top banner and other forms of announcing but, as a company, you can also buy the presence in form of content, like it happens in Village Soup. The difference is that business content is on the same layout as the other content- but in other column. Editors can edit it like it was professional content. I also plan to have little spaces for ads as the need of the client: you want just a one-word banner, you have it.
Right now, Bairro de Alvalade, a urban street area in Lisbon, Portugal, don't have a local news web site or newspaper. People don't have a place to stay informed about the area where they live.
Bairro de Alvalade has a very strong community, aged but informed, and it has been replaced by young couples with a good economic power and social education.
This project gives chances to people to participate in something that work for the neighborhood and create information.
What experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project?
Project manager experience
I intend to develop this project with some technical help. I’m an editor-in-chief at a B2B media company. I work with paper, web and events for the same brands, so I’m used to work with different platform for contents. I have also some experience in local journalism: my first job was in a local newspaper. I’m used to follow new media trends and recently I’ve been in a UT Austin web journalism program. In my group we develop and present a project for a social network for foreign students. I have the experience of growing projects up and be persistent to take them to an end.
0 comments
