Blottr
URLblottr.com
LaunchedAugust 2010
Current statusOffline

Blottr was a citizen journalism news website based in the United Kingdom and started in August 2010 by entrepreneur Adam Baker. Originally featuring hyperlocal news in London, the site grew to cover a total of eight UK cities: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester and Manchester. In October 2011 Blottr expanded outside of the UK to Blottr France and Blottr Germany.[1] Blottr peaked at more than 5000 contributors and more than 1.4 million unique visitors a month.[2] Blottr was shut down in April 2014.

Platform

Users who sign up for Blottr could add text, tags, videos and photos to one another's news stories in a wiki-platform. Blottr featured regular columnists whose blog posts were not able to be edited. Blottr circulated news through its website, Twitter, Facebook and a weekly digest email. In order to rate user-generated content, the site used an "authentication algorithm" which rated users based on influence, number of revisions to a story, number of contributors, and more.[3]

In July 2011, Blottr also launched an iPhone app, Papparappzi, which allowed would-be citizen journalists to capture photos and footage of news happening around them and then easily upload it to the Blottr website.[4]

Business model

Blottr monetized by selling licensing to its crowdsourced news platform, called NewsPoint, starting in June 2011.[5] The site secured an angel investment in May 2011 worth up to £1 million to expand its operations. The investor was Mark Pearson, founder of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk.[6]

Contributors participated in a revenue-sharing scheme in which they received £1 for every thousand page views.[7]

Notable Stories

In May 2011, Blottr beat BBC and SkyNews by three hours in a story about a London bomb threat.[8] During the London riots of August 2011, founder Adam Baker said the site broke the news of riots in Ealing and Woolwich before mainstream news outlets.[9]

Awards and recognition

In 2011 startups.co.uk awarded Blottr its "Innovative Business of the Year" and "Most Disruptive Business" awards at the Tech City UK Entrepreneurship festival. Startups.co.uk said in a statement that "Blottr has real potential to become a very strong digital brand name in the next few years, and is a fabulous example of British creativity and digital prowess".[10] The 2011 Europas also gave Blottr highly commended status for media, recruitment and education.[11]

References

  1. ^ Marshall, Sarah (17 October 2011). "Citizen Journalism site Blottr expands into France and Germany". Guardian UK. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  2. ^ Klaushofer, Alex (31 October 2011). "Under the spotlight: Citizen journalism". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  3. ^ Alex, Klaushofer (31 October 2011). "Under the spotlight: Citizen journalism site Blottr". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  4. ^ "Apps rush: Star Trek, Paparappzi, Polyphonic Spree and more". Guardian UK. 12 July 2011. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  5. ^ Sawers, Paul (3 June 2011). "Blottr launches NewsPoint, and opens up crowdsourced reporting to publishers". The Next Web. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  6. ^ O'Hear, Steve (5 May 2011). "Citizen Journalism is alive and well in the UK - Blottr scores Angel investment". Tech Crunch Europe. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  7. ^ Klaushofer, Alex (31 October 2011). "Under the spotlight: Citizen journalism". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  8. ^ Harford, Tim. "A citizen journalism model that actually breaks news?". Virtual Economics. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  9. ^ Klaushofer, Alex. "Under the Spotlight: Citizen Journalism Cite Blottr". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  10. ^ "Innovative Business of the Year, Blottr". Startups.co.uk. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  11. ^ Bould, Sarah. "Citizen Journalism Website Celebrates Two Awards". Hold the Front Page. Retrieved 14 December 2011.

External links

Citizen journalism
Categories