This is our full proposal for Round 2 of the Knight News Challenge and it is due January 31, 2010.
There are three rules to follow to apply to the 2010 Knight News Challenge:
1. Use digital, open-source technology.
2. Distribute news in the public interest.
3. Test your project in a local community.
To be more specific:
THE KNIGHT NEWS CHALLENGE INITIATIVE SEEKS…
- New ways for people to communicate interactively to help people better understand one another in geographic communities, share know-how and generate passion in solving local problems;
- New ways for people to use information, news and journalism in geographic communities to imagine their collective possibilities as communities, and to set and reach common community goals;
- New ways to dig for news and act on it in geographic communities, including new ways to collect, prepare and distribute information, news and journalism that reveals hard-to-know facts, identifies common problems, clarifies community issues or points out practical courses of action.
Keep in mind the purpose of the contest is to develop digital communication projects that will help better connect people in physical space, in the communities in which they work, live and vote.
If you want to help let us know if the idea is clear, how you would improve it, and whether you see any mistakes in logic. For contact info click Contact above.
Project Title (100 chars): TalkTownNews.com: Your Local Internet News Radio Network - Fresh Local News!
Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: 665000
Expected amount of time to complete project: 1 yr
Total cost of project including all sources of funding: 665000
Describe your project (1800 chars):
Talk Town News (TTN) will be an Internet News Radio Network that provides fast paced, one to ten minute, locally focused newscasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is designed to be the Pandora/Huffington Post of Internet News Radio. It's core goals are: 1.) Create quality, local citizen/community news correspondents 2.) Be a strong alternative to terrestrial news radio networks 3.) Provide user friendly tools for reporting and/or listening from anywhere. 4.) Take advantage of geo-positioning/check-in information to deliver relevant news, assign reporters to breaking news, and provide focused advertising for community businesses and organizations. TTN will create and use digital, open source technology that includes 1.) Web-based and mobile phone interfaces/apps (including apps for iPhone, Facebook, etc.) that will allow the user to report and listen to local community news 2.) Customized telephone exchange servers (PBX) to allow for phone-based reporting 3.) Customized Icecast servers for creating dynamic TTN Internet news radio streams 4.) A web application that tracks ongoing news and statistics based on geographic location, creates dynamic Internet radio streams, and assigns news stories to community/citizen reporters based on geographic location. TTN will distribute news and information in the public interest due to its design, which allows members of the local community to easily report and consume Internet radio based news in a real-time, dynamic format. The project will be initiated in New York City and the surrounding suburbs. This area of the country is well-populated with many diverse cultures and a large amount of local news that fails to get reported by the local terrestrial news radio stations, which makes it the perfect location for the TTN pilot.
How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities (750 chars) ?
It is nearly impossible for communities to start local news radio (terrestrial) stations due to licensing issues. However, the Internet and new smart phones make less important for a community to own a radio station. For example, it is just as easy to plug an iPhone into your car and listen to Internet radio as it is to turn on your car radio to listen to a broadcast. Geo-positioning (GPS)/check in also makes it possible to dynamically source and distribute highly localized news. Think of it as a radio that constantly changes channels to find the best local news based on your location, with the added ability of the listener to report news. This allows improved community participation and the more focused distribution of localized news.
How is your idea innovative? (new or different from what already exists) (750 chars):
News radio organizations broadcast from centralized hubs with huge physical barriers to entry (licenses, towers, talent, etc.) and act as if these barriers exist on the Internet. However, they have been significantly lowered with the introduction of new smart phones, social networks, and citizen/community reporting of news events. TTN takes advantage of these trends to create dynamic, community generated Internet news radio where the concept of stations becomes blurred and news is reported based on where you are and what you prefer, rather then what station you have tuned into. TTN is designed to provide hyper-local coverage at a fraction of radio's costs and avoids the fixed station mentality that even Internet radio services follow.
What experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project? (1600 chars):
Talk Town News is planned as a service of PodGlo Enterprises, Inc. We have already developed several components that can be used by TTN including: 1.) Web-based recorders for the major browsers 2.) A customized telephone exchange server for phone-based recording 3.) An SMS (texting) system for the for the distribution and recording of new content 4.) A flash-based widget for the recording/playback of audio conversations 5.) RSS feed servers that import, manipulate, and re-distribute RSS feeds 6.) A web-based application for the creation, manipulation, and distribution of micro-podcasts (MP3s) and widgets. Each of these would be enhanced for TTN and open-sourced. Doug Kersten is the founder of PodGlo, the NYC Podcasting Association, and is an experienced LAMP developer. He also founded the "The Small Business Blog", sold to Allbusiness.com, which reported small business news. He has financial services industry experience and attended the U.S. Naval Academy. Peter Gien, also a founder, is a developer with experience in C/C++, JavaScript, Python, and OpenLaszlo. Peter has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University and studied digital signal processing. He was also an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University and worked for Microsoft, Merrill Lynch, Secure Software Inc., Identrus LLC, and Lucent Technologies. We enjoy working on problems dealing with the creation and distribution of audio content. Winning the Knight News Challenge would allow us to fulfill our dreams to revolutionize the news radio industry. SEE SUPPORTING MATERIAL FOR MORE INFORMATION.
The Project (Round 2 Questions):
What unmet need does your proposal answer? (750 chars):
News Radio relevant to local communities is not readily available online. TTN answers this need. Today's Internet News Radio follows old, station-based models where you must 'tune-in' to the 'right station' to get the news. The news on the majority of these 'stations' focus on traditional broadcast area boundaries, not local communities. Major radio markets average 4 full-time employees per newsroom, making it virtually impossible for today's newsrooms to produce/report on truly local news. Community/citizen reporters must be involved, using new models and techniques, to address these needs and Internet media strengths (participatory, real-time, dynamic, linkable, shareable) must be leveraged to create a new form of Internet News Radio.
What tasks/benchmarks need to be accomplished to develop your project and by when will you complete them? (2000 chars):
Four major areas will be addressed to ensure project success: 1.) Software/Technology 2.) Organizational Structure 3.) Community Participation 4.) Sustainability. PHASE I - TEAM BUILDING/DESIGN (July-Aug. 2010): Build the fundamental organization, which will be initially comprised of the key individuals needed in order to address the four major areas above. With the recent commitment to the team of a News Producer of Distributed Reporting and assistance from organizations like Growthspur.com (to address sustainability), the most critical members should already be in place on the first day of funding. This will allow us to quickly begin the design process in order to come to consensus on the core features, technologies, suppliers, and support systems for the project. PHASE II - DEVELOPMENT (Aug. 2010 - Jan. 2011): Due to the innovations required for this project, TTN will be using Agile development methodologies, based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between the key areas of the organization as well as the public. The goal will be to build the software platform, refine the organizational structure, develop the techniques used to encourage community participation, and develop sustainability models. PHASE III - BETA ROLL OUT (Jan. 2011 - Apr. 2011): TTN will be rolled out to a controlled group of users. Based on feedback, the tweaking and iteration of features and functionality will occur and support processes will be tested. The first TTN news broadcast to the public will occur during this phase! PHASE IV - COMMUNITY BUILDING (Jan. 2011+): This phase will begin during Beta Roll Out and will test and refine the tools and techniques used to encourage quality citizen journalism and to build listenership. PHASE V - PUBLIC LAUNCH (Apr. 2011): TTN will be fully opened to the community. Focus will switch to growing the ranks of citizen journalists, building listenership, and executing our plan to become self sufficient.
What will you have changed by the end of your project? (1800 chars):
TTN will have changed the way that Internet News Radio is created and distributed. New York City, and the surrounding suburbs, will be provided with a community created news and information source that will be able to take the place of the news radio currently created and controlled by a small group of individuals. This will allow for the relevant communication of news and information that will help people to better understand needs of their communities. Unprecedented access to the news reporting process will be in place and listeners will be the primary news reporters for their communities. Contrary to current news radio practices, TTN will be transparent, encourage community involvement, and allow unparalleled access to any news and information collected. Along with these changes, TTN will provide the software (code), processes (organization), community outreach, and sustainability knowledge that it has discovered/created during the project and this will, in turn, change the way other organizations report and distribute news and information. Small changes that result from the project, like access to non-proprietary web-based recording software/code and access to an API that allows other organizations/programmers to create/consume information on the TTN platform, will also impact the way that news is reported and distributed. These changes ultimately point the way towards a platform that, if properly executed, could become the first national, hyper-local Internet News Radio Network with a listenership potential that far outstrips any news radio network in existence today. This would also be the first network that is designed to directly serve the needs of local communities by replacing the cookie cutter news services of today with news that is truly community oriented.
How will you measure progress and ultimately success? (1600 chars):
As noted above, Software/Technology, Organizational Structure, Community Participation, and Sustainability will determine project success. Development of the Software/Technology will require the most effort because it will affect, and be affected by, each of the other areas. Progress will be measured using standard project management tools/methodologies. Key goals will be defined during the TEAM BUILDING/DESIGN Phase and progress individually tracked. Frequent inspection and adaptation will occur to ensure that development progress aligns with TTN's goals and the needs of the community. Time periods will will be measured in weeks, rather than months, and work will be performed in a highly collaborative manner. Once publicly launched, the project will be considered successful from a Software/Technology and Organizational Structure perspective. Community Participation success will be determined by the number of listeners and community/citizen reporters. There should be at least 100 participating community/citizen reporters at project end (14x avg. # of major market newsroom employees). Session starts, average active sessions, and average time spent listening will be tracked to determine listenership. Sustainability success will be determined by demonstrating an ability to profitably acquire new users. Since TTN will be publicly launched for only three months at project end, it will probably not be fully self-sufficient (our research indicates that it can take ~2 years to build a sufficient audience). However, methods for profitably acquiring new users should be demonstrable.
Do you see any risk in the development of your project? (1800 chars):
Based on our experience, the risk regarding the development of the technology involved, although somewhat complex, is relatively low. However, quality, organization, and participation are areas where some risk exists. Providing incentive for citizen reporters to create quality content will be one of the most challenging jobs for TTN. In fact, it is the job above all others that we must execute well in order to succeed. To do this we will encourage the concept of 'membership' by promoting the successes of TTN reporters, organizing training events, and developing processes and tools that encourage quality reporting. Poor organization of citizen reporters will also negatively impact the project. Other news organizations have found that news stories, not technology, are the best organizing tools for citizen reporters. With this in mind, tools and techniques will be designed to ensure that the stories that the community is most interested in will be used as organizational focus points. Finally, the risk of non-participation needs to be addressed in order to encourage growth and continued success. To prime the pump of participation, TTN staff will be the first active reporters. Also, a core concept of TTN is that all listeners are potential reporters. As such, every application used for listening will also include access to a tool for reporting. Whether participants are listeners, reporters, newscasters or producers, participation will be tracked so that TTN always has the situational awareness needed to effectively utilize resources and to act quickly to resolve issues. TTN will be the producer and organizer, keep reporters motivated, and provide lightly guided consistency so that listeners experience quality reporting as well as relevant and timely news and information.
What is your marketing plan? How will people learn about what you are doing? (1800 chars):
First and foremost, we will serve the interests of our customers to the best of our ability. That being said, TTN will initially work to build out free/inexpensive marketing channels such as listing in search directories, search engine optimization, participation in local forums and online communities, viral marketing, email newsletters, leveraging winning the Knight News Challenge Grant, etc. A major component of TTN's overall marketing plan will be the creation it's own community. A core goal of this community will be to cultivate and reward evangelists. This will also allow us to determine who loves our product and why. With this information in hand we will be able to more effectively focus our marketing message. We will also use our website and tools to heighten the communities sense of identity with TTNs work by building 'social capital' to lay a foundation with the community. For example, TTN will create 'community services' content that will announce town events, provide information such as school closings and parking information, and attend community events such as street fairs, town hall meetings, school functions, etc. We plan to build a mobile studio out of a small travel trailer to attend these neighborhood events. This will allow community members to drop in and do some reporting of their own, learn about the production/newscasting/reporting process or just listen in. We will also leverage our access to the podcasting community to develop partnerships with local podcasters and bloggers and will be contacting local governments to encourage their participation in TTN. Since all services are different, the right marketing plan will require some experimentation on our part to get the right mix. Working with the Knight Foundation will be invaluable in this area.
