Start-up encourages locals to write about their neighbourhood with launch of online news site
A community online news publication has been launched by a start-up with local people invited to write about their neighbourhood.
The announcement:
An Aussie start-up has launched a crowd-sourced publishing platform where residents can write community news online.
Neighbour News Network connects people who wish to write about their community to an audience of locals in a ‘live’ Facebook-style newsfeed. The initiative is the brainchild of neighbourhood social networking site, Housenet.com.au.
“Neighbour News Network is the place to write about where you live,” Housenet.com.au CEO Darren Moffatt said. “People get passionate about what happens in their neighbourhood. Residents want to have a say on community issues, but often struggle to be heard because it can be difficult to reach other residents.
“Neighbour News Network is the answer. It’s the missing link between traditional local media and the humble neighbourhood letter-box drop.”
According to Mr Moffatt, the platform is easy to use and is already proving popular with residents, bloggers, and activists.
“People are using it to write about traffic conditions, developments, and council services. It gives residents a virtual ‘soap-box’ to express views on local issues that affect them and their neighbours,” he said.
Members can publish an article as a blog, which is then seen by subscribers to their suburb. They can even syndicate the content to members in surrounding suburbs, and it also appears on search engines for further reach online.
“It’s free to join and after a simple sign up process, you can be publishing your news online in as little as five minutes. Neighbours can then help shape stories with comments in real-time which makes local news more exciting, interesting and interactive,” Mr Moffatt said.
“We think it’s the way of the future.”
Neighbour News Network has already attracted a community of volunteer editors across Australia, and there are further mechanisms for reporting errant users and inappropriate content.
Mr Moffatt said the aim is to create a new category of ‘neighbour news’, where residents can easily share stories and views with each other.
“Traditional local journalism performs an important community function, and there’ll always be a place for it. But this is something different again. In fact, we see the Neighbour News Network as a useful tool for journalists to discover stories and build connections with the local community.
“We encourage anyone who are concerned about local issues in their own neighbourhood to give it a go,” Mr Moffatt said.
Source: Neighbour News Network press release
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online news
I love the idea, but it seems a bit backwards.
As a viewer I can’t read it and get interested in things – the only way it would let me navigate to my suburb was by creating an account and providing my first name, last name, date of birth, details of what I was interested in, a photo of me , etc .. It rejected my multiple attempts to create an account – as I had to pulldown a box with ‘Resident’ selected to select the second entry ‘Resident’ – not the first.
A lot of hoops readers much jump through. I’m not sure it really counts as ‘publishing’ when the readership has been blocked to only those who are willing to jump through that many hoops!
And after that ordeal I found my suburb – a page with only one other entry. The other entry was an automatic post saying that the only other user had created an account from half a year ago.
Not sure there’s much impetus to create posts when they’ve put so many obstacles to others reading. Yes – I found the way to view the content without an account … but it’s certainly not encouraged by the platform.
And I like the way that they argue that they are proud to protect my privacy, as they don’t even request my address. Instead they publish my first name, last name, my birthday, my postcode, my gender, the last moment that I was on the site ….
Since that counts as protecting my privacy as a reader – I’m not sure what would count as *NOT* protecting a reader’s privacy !
— Mac
(PS: Complaining about privacy aside – something like this is long overdue – I hope this is a success. It’ll be interesting to see how this grows.)
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People, protect your data,
Don’t ever go on a site like that and provide anything like your real name, dob, hair colour or even dogs name!
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Can homeless people register? We have drunken bums in the park next to the agency and I don’t want them to get the wrong idea. They’ll be up here knocking on the door and being all neighbourly. I could use the site for my fruitbat petition. When they shoosed them out ot the Botanic Gardens they relocated in the gully down the road from the agency. I want the Gardens to take the stinkin’ things back.
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