A victim of the always-on, always-updating news cycle is the concept of a “fully baked” news product. Since it’s always changing, through updates, comments and reactions, the news is never done. Ostensibly, this makes it more difficult to charge for news, since it’s more a process than a product these days.
Pierre Omidyar, founder of the new Honolulu-based Civil Beat, doesn’t agree. The site launched yesterday and is very new media, with Twitter, blog-style reporting, topic pages and a goal of lots of engagement.
“We’re going to be sharing with the public what we’re working on as we’re working on it and the experience of working on it,” Civil Beat editor John Temple, formerly of the Rocky Mountain News, told NPR.
They are also going to be charging for it. A monthly subscription will run you $20 but you can get a 15-day trial for 99 cents right now. Omidyar founded eBay in the mid-1900s and made it turn a profit much sooner than most dot-coms and he’s bringing the same approach to this news experiment.
“If it’s valuable, they’ll pay,” Omidyar told NPR, “and if it’s not valuable, they won’t pay and we’ll learn from the fact that they’re not paying.”
With Omidyar’s deep pockets and tech background, some media watchers have been anxiously awaiting the unveiling of Civil Beat, originally called Peer News. But the secret sauce here is an ever-present PayPal link, not innovative code (paidContent has more on the pricing model here).
The website itself doesn’t have any super fantastic technology that’s revolutionary, that’s going to do any crazy things that people haven’t seen before,” Omidyar told NPR. “It’s really about engaging with citizens, engaging with our friends and neighbors here in the community in a different way.”
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OMG Buffy not PIERRE!
Hasn't he done ENOUGH damage to both USENET and INTERNET?
Quickly! We must call for GODZILLA! This is to be our only hope!
Thanks for sharing what looks like a great model for both a business and community engagement. The discussions seem pretty smart; I get a kick out of the guy who posted “Everyone's so damn reasonable on this site.”
It can't be a coincidence that commenters are identified by name and several, at least for now, by face. That has to be the future of civil discussion. I couldn't find the naming requirements in the TOS (which is a fun read btw) but presumably at least use of PayPal makes it less likely 'TaxAvenger69er” will sign up for an account.
You just named it's Achilled' Heel-PayPal.
People who did not hide behind a pseudonym who were not civil.
Ghenghis Ghan
Mao Zedong
Joseph Stalin
Adolph Hitler
Jim Jones
Idi Amin
One who did use false names but probably wouldn't have blogged:
James Earl Ray
If you are against anonymity, groovy.
Keep it anonymous please. The rest of us are out there making it safe for you to be ignorant or oblivious of your world.
Eh, a difference of opinion and style. I have two objections to anonymity.
1. Maybe you're the exception, but this is a pretty well-known phenomenon: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ If people like that style, great, but others would say it drags down civil discourse because some people are repelled by it.
2. The other is lack of accountability. If people tell me new information and I disregard it, people know Walter Neary disregarded it. In an anonymous world, you can ignore the information more freely because no one knows you either can't absorb it or don't want to. I'm not thinking of you, who I don't know, but more of a city councilman in my town who asked the same exact questions for eight years. That helps me understand his record in public policy.
But certainly the discourse is freer. Just my thoughts.
Pay wall? If they have one there isn't anything telling me how to pay?
eBay was bad enough. voting for failure.
Errata: eBay was founded a lot closer to the mid-1990s, not 1900s/fifties and if he had been suppressed as a gross spammer when he introduced Auction Net (sic), which became eBay on Usenet newsgroups he probably wouldn't have had a chance in hell.
As long as Paypal is involved and a threat to my bank account I will wish him a happy, cheerful failure and Aloha Oe, Baby.
You still haven't corrected the blaring typo.
For one month at $4.99 and 11 months at $19.99, Civil Beat will … “We want to provide a place for the community!