Company Performance Metrics
Elizabeth Hodgson: Founder and CEO
Indiconews.com is a global civic media news website. The aim of the site is to create a greater sense of identity within the news process where the audience is no longer passive but part of an ongoing conversation.
Indiconews.com does this by not only enabling users to upload reports/comments/eyewitness updates according to location
and category as text, multi-images and video, but also via a range of innovative features, including:
Assignments:: Indiconews.com users set assignments according to what they define as newsworthy. Other members can then take up the assignment, providing a range of views and news perspectives associated with the topic. This creates an immediate, yet deeper 'discussion', challenging one-dimensional news or issue reportage.
Tip-off: A more focused assignment feature, "Tip-off" allows the local user to assign specific members within their locality to report anything from a music festival to a political rally. This helps build hyper-local news while drawing on civic media reporters local knowledge.
"Interview Me": A feature that matches reporter's interview needs with registered indiconews 'experts'. It is a mutually beneficial system - reporters get relevant information, from source, while the 'interviewed' get coverage in the news. Authenticity of interviewee's expertise is based on supporting information provided by the 'expert' from which the reporter can evaluate their relevance for their news feature.
Since rolling out public Beta V2 in March 09, Indiconews.com has been added to MIT's Center for Future Civic Media network of civic media innovators.
**Standards in Civic Media Series**
Indiconews.com have also launched their "Standards in Civic Media" series.
This is an ongoing project that will examine the need, if any, for a 'code of conduct' for civic media sites.
They plan to draw on the insight, opinions and expertise of industry insiders, academics, journalists and of course the community of civic media users.
It is hoped that the collaborative piece of work (competitors and partners alike are encouraged to engage with it) will eventually find a home of it's own, independent of Indiconews.com - most likely as a wiki-style resource.
Whatever the findings, indiconews.com hope the "Standards in Civic Media" "Standards in Civic Media" series will produce some very interesting contributions which will shape civic media's future during its development.
