What's Next – Rachel Sterne

Posted on 22. Oct, 2007 by in What's Next?

Here’s what GroundReport is up to:
We’re putting the finishing touches on our mini-publication functionality– this enables any group to instantly create a professional, branded online publication with their own dynamic front page. Groups customize with their logo, title, description and website link. They add contributors who can post content to the publication, and appoint editors who can revise and delete reports. Each publication gets its own RSS feed and an unchanging web address. To encourage communication within the community, members can post comments to a bulletin board and see a feed of recent activity from their friends.

This had been in the works, but at the Summit I was inspired by Dan Pacheco’s response to the idea. He convinced me that there is a need for the tool. I love small-town newspapers and don’t want them to die. And since the tools to publish online are so affordable that there’s no reason for these publications to disappear. GroundReport’s mission is to democratize the media by removing barriers to participation, so this is a natural next step.

Update: GroundReport launched the Group/minipublication functionality inspired in part by the Networked Journalism Summit, specifically in a conversation with Dan Pacheco.  Example.

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