PJNet

What a nice way to wake up; this from David Cohn, founder of Spot.us, which is his concept to fund quality journalism:

I woke up Sunday morning, checked twitter and was instantly referred to a New York Times article “A Different Way to Pay for the News You Want.”

It seems Spot.Us became the focus of an article that, from my understanding, was originally supposed to be about the concept of “crowdfunding.” Perhaps Spot.Us was a fresher angle? Either way – it certainly was nice to see the New York Times take notice of my little startup.

While it’s very cool and welcomed – I don’t want to start patting myself on the back. In truth – I would have preferred this article not come out for another few (4-6) months. The fact is – Spot.Us is still in a nascent stage. We have small victories – but nothing to celebrate overtly yet.

Plus Cohn is so engrained in new media that he writes:

Spot.Us will not succeed through any amount of attention from old media (which in itself adds to this weird watching ourselves die coverage).

This is also a good time for a couple of updates on Spot.us:

1. Cohn has formed a partnership with ReelChanges.org, run by Hal Plotkin. ReelChanges is another funding model.
2. He has a wiki where he is trying to raise money for a few projects, while he builds a more fancy funding platform. So far, one project has been funded and another one for $2,500 is 94 percent funded. Alas it does not look like The New York Times did not add much success to this relatively small project, which seems stuck at that 94 percent mark.  The 94-percent-funded project would fact check poltical ads in San Francisco. I would contribute, but this seems like something the San Francisco based people have to step up and fund. I say call out the hacks who make false political ads; it is time to expose the liars.

Now let’s see, if some folks pony up the last $125 and say they read about it on the PJNet.org does that make me — and those who pony up the money — more powerful than the New York Times.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 1:55 pm and is filed under David Cohn, Journalism Business Models, journalism jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.