Citizen
journalists can now count on a new platform on which to showcase their
perspective on world events in the guise of global, user-generated news community
Allvoices. Soft-launched
as a beta in April 2007, the site was declared to be fully functional in a
press release issued today.
Its
creators have presented it as an original undertaking in that it aggregates
user-generated text, photo and video reporting with traditional news channels
into a single, fully integrated online resource. This means it brings together two distinctive
and complementary slants, with the raw, unedited posts of citizen reporters counter-balancing
the finer-wrought, editorially controlled content produced by professional
journalists.
Allvoices
is engineered using a set of proprietary algorithms that sort incoming
information from over
3,500 mainstream feeds and online sources of news for relevance. Stories are automatically ranked by crossing
two criteria: the quantity and variety of information available from other
sources touching on the same events on the one hand, and the amount of
community activity they generate on the other.
At the time of writing,
users can post their contributions on a wide range of topics that include politics,
business, conflict & tragedy, science & technology, sports and entertainment.
Each individual posting is organized by
location, time and category, and put into context thanks to automated
cross-referencing with connected news stories, blogs, images and videos. Reports can be submitted either through the
website or using SMS or MMS mobile services.
The outcome, as described
by Allvoices chief executive officer Amra Tareen, is that ?Allvoices is using
technology to leverage a single voice. Contributed content is validated by the
community, traditional media and other online sources?. In a context where traditional news
organisations? budgets are being sliced, she expresses her conviction that
citizen media must take on their share of the burden, ?We believe our model of
merging user-generated content and professional news sources into one community
will create the first true people?s media?, she said.
The site owes its existence
to Tareen?s first-hand witnessing of the destruction wreaked by the 2005
earthquake in Pakistan, an experience that convinced her of the value of
individual, first-hand reporting, and of the need to create an online venue
where it could reveal all of its facets.