Spot.us

David Cohn, the founder of spot.us

Spot.Us is a non-profit organization designed to bring citizens, journalists, and news publishers together in an online marketplace based on crowdsourcing and crowdfunding methods and principles. It was founded in 2008 by David Cohn, who [1] received a $340,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to pursue his idea. In November 2011 it was bought by American Public Media.[2] They hosted the site for a time, but were unable to maintain it. It was retired February 2015. [3]

While providing a new option for funding journalism, it also has raised questions about activism and new sorts of conflict of interest.[4][5]

Spot.Us originally focused on projects in the San Francisco Bay area, where it is headquartered. It expanded to Los Angeles in 2009[6] and plans to expand its scope to a national or international level.

Method of operation

Stories begin as tips from the public giving an issue they would like to see covered, or pitches from a journalist to create a story, including the amount of money needed. Visitors to the website can then donate to fund the pitch.

Smaller stories cost a couple hundred dollars to fund, while the largest cost about one thousand dollars. Completed stories are available under a Creative Commons license. They can be viewed for free on the website and used free of charge by news organizations. News organizations that wish to gain temporary copyright of articles may do so by contributing over 50 percent of the funding.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Knightpulse.org
  2. ↑ Spot.us About us
  3. ↑ Spot.us is going away, but its legacy inspires new chapters of crowdfunding playbook
  4. ↑ "Crowd Funding - A Different Way to Pay for the News You Want". New York Times. 2008-08-23. Retrieved 2011-01-24.
  5. ↑ "Spot.Us Lessons: Journalists Work in, and For, the Public". PBS MediaShift. 2010-06-30. Retrieved 2011-01-24.
  6. ↑ "How Spot.Us could help save journalism". Christian Science Monitor. 2009-09-23. Retrieved 2011-01-24.

External links