ScooptWords blog

Scoopt & MoblogUK

Scoopt joins up with MoblogUK to for the world's first 'community site' to allow members to sell their images. Journalism.co.uk has the full skinny, but appended in brief,

"What we are trying to do here is make an easy way for that to happen, to create an easy route to market for these images," said Kyle Macrae...

..."There are millions of pictures on the web and none of them are available for sale. That is where we are heading with this, it is the first step to get that vast amount of photos to be used commercially."

Alfie Dennen, MoblogUK co-founder, said: "Through our collaboration with Scoopt, MoblogUK is the only photo-sharing community site in the world offering its members a direct route to market.

"By partnering with Scoopt we are opening up a new service for our users, who these days are among those creating the news."

This is very good news for moblogUK members and Scoopt. Alfie is a stand up guy I've had several dealings with over the years and MoblogUK provide an excellent service and a quailty product. You can go discuss this on the MoblogUK forum. And if you're a MoblogUK member and have a newsworthy snap you think we can sell you'll need to stick it here.

Scoopt in the New York Times

Oh... this citizen journalism thing is only just getting started,

A British Web site that sees itself as a “citizen journalism agency,” connecting camera phone reporters with newspapers. The site’s founder, Kyle McRae, a former freelance technology writer, counts the major British dailies, along with newspapers on the Continent and in the United States, as his clients.

Unlike Bild, Scoopt’s reader-reporters license their photos for three months to Mr. McRae’s organization, and in return receive 50 percent of the sale price every time Scoopt sells a picture.

The Web site has members in 90 countries, and Mr. McRae talks of a day when a global legion of bloggers and camera phone reporters replaces journalists in covering major news events.

“Being the first on the scene is valuable,” he said. “It’s thousands of times more valuable than the quality.” From The New York Times.

Caught plagiarised

Jonathan at Plagiarism Today writes a long feature about ScooptWords. Good stuff and well worth a read. Unfortunately, like many Wordpress blogs of late, and for some reason I can't fathom when I post a comment to the site, it doesn't show up. So I'll post my comment here. I've also emailed it to Jonathan,

Excellent overview Jonathan, cheers. Just a few additions/clarifications.

The oft talked about blog button is already broaching sales, but it is actually a very, very small part of what we're about. It's the most passive sales method we currently have.

In the near future we will package the most commercial posts and present them in an easy to buy fashion. Editors will be able to sign up for a tailored email newsletter and/or RSS feed or visit an aggregated website. Buying content is as simple clicking a payment button in a feed, an email, on a website, or indeed the blog button on the originating blog.

How do we choose the 'most commercial posts'? Well, as you mention, we all have a journalistic background. We're not just some tech start up looking to make cash from bloggers. Some of us have written books, worked as editors or staff writers and freelances, so we have an idea of what sells and where it sells. I still work as a journalist myself. We're not saying we're experts, but we're not that clueless either :)

Also, we strongly believe that an editorial gatekeeper is key to the success of ScooptWords, or any blog based content selling service for that matter. We've had some great feedback from editors on our plans. From editors at publications with a 2 million circulation to wee specialist outfits with print runs in the thousands. Our job is to make the best, relevant, niche content available to these editors in an easily digestible form that's a snap for them to buy. As I mentioned, all of that's coming, just give us some time :)

You're bang on about rates, nothing is fixed in stone. We'll be reassessing every aspect of ScooptWords within 6 months. The blogger/ScooptWords cut is high on the list to chat about.

As for the copyright protection we offer. It's interesting that many bloggers signed up to BlogBurst, seemingly without realising the copyright grab that was going on and for no money. I believe BB have changed this slightly now. This made us very starkly aware that many bloggers didn't seem to have a clue about copyright. I mean I'm a blogger too and I'm very protective of my content - I've dealt head on with spambloggers and gotten results. Funnily enough, BlogBurst approached me to sign up for their service :)

However, there's no way I'm giving my content away, least of all to a company that's making cash out of it and offering zilch in return bar 'exposure'. Unfortunately, agreements like that are absolute nobrainers for newspapers. They get to choose whatever blog content they want and they get it for free and, worse, they plaster that content with advertising. Did you see how Scott Karp's post on SFGate appeared in a BlogBurst feed:

http://publishing2.com/2006/07/19/3-million-bloggers-looking-to-make-money/

Now tell me if that was your content and you saw no financial gain from that how would you feel? Be honest now.

Scoopt snapper wins journalism award

An eyewitness who took photographs of the aftermath of a bomb blast on a bus in Tavistock Square on July 7 and sent them to Scoopt has won the first Nokia Citizen Journalism Award.

The winning photographer, who asked to remain anonymous, and will be donating his prizes to charity, said: "If I tell you that I don't remember seeing the bus you won't believe me, but I didn't see it, such was the confusion in my head.

"I could have taken more pictures if I was a professional, but the reality was that I couldn't.

"The press interest in my photos was overwhelming.

"I asked [agency] Scoopt to look after the pictures for me so that I would not have to look at them any more, but of course the memories will never go away."

From the Press Gazette.

Technorati Tags: citizen journalism, July 7, Scoopt, Nokia Citizen Journalism Award

Sales and mo' press

Matt Whipp from PCPro.co.uk runs a short piece on ScooptWords,

It's a straightforward service, but with blogging by its very nature a public entity, is there any demand? Blogs are already a well-known and used source for the media industry: journalists don't have a special sauce for editorial that exists purely by virtue of their title, but the most straightforward way for a publisher to benefit from a well-read blogger might be to simply hire them full stop.

Graham Holliday, ScooptWords managing editor, told us: 'The thing is, some blogs - by NO means all - are producing material every bit as good as professional journalists. Our research, and our instinct tells us, some would like a commercial route to market for their words. However, most bloggers are not clued up re: copyright, contracts, fees, territorial rights and the like. That's where we help.

'Those editors who are blog savvy have been very eager to contact us and enquire about what's available now and what will be available down the line. We're still in beta, we only 'stealth' launched a little over two weeks ago... However, we already have a lot of editorial interest and we've made sales. It's all very early days, but we're really happy with the way this is shaping up and the reaction from the bloggers has been overwhelmingly positive.'

Thanks Matt.

Press Release

Scoopt, The World's First Citizen Journalism Picture Agency, Now Selling Blog Content To The Mainstream Media

Monetising blogs: www.scoopt.com/words

Press Dispensary - 23 June 2006 - Scoopt.com, the 'citizen journalism' picture agency that gives the public the power to sell photos to the press, announces the launch of ScooptWords, its blog syndication service. Now bloggers can sell their writing to the mainstream media.

Graham Holliday, ScooptWords managing editor, explains: "There's a lot of great blog content out there. Some of it is every bit as good as content produced by professional journalists. However, there's no obvious route to market for the blogger or way to buy content for the editor. So we launched ScooptWords to make this connection. We offer bloggers a simple, free way to flag their content for sale – and we give publishers the means to license that content commercially. It's a win-win situation."

ScooptWords membership is free. A blogger simply registers one or more blogs with the scheme and carries a ScooptWords button on their blog(s). Any editor can then click this button to license content commercially at a fair market rate. The blogger receives 75% of the sales revenue.

ScooptWords is working closely with Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org), leading provider of flexible copyright licenses for creative works. ScooptWords believes that it is essential to preserve and encourage the free exchange of content for non-commercial use, and important that bloggers understand the different ways in which they can permit their content to be used. Creative Commons is the perfect partner for non-commercial licensing.

Creative Commons spokesperson Eric Steuer comments: "Within the Scoopt interface, you can easily add a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license to your blog right alongside a Scoopt commercial badge. Use the CC license to tell people how your work can be used non-commercially; use the ScooptWords badge to let editors know that your writing can be purchased for commercial use. There's so much great blog content being created every day - it'll be very exciting to see how it helps change the way newspapers and magazines are created."

Graham Holliday continues: "At the moment, everyone involved in media, from the small-town blogger with 10 readers to the heads of the world's biggest news organizations, is riding this huge tidal wave of change in media. That wave is just beginning to break and no-one – not the brightest media brains nor the smallest small-town blogger – has any idea what will be left standing once the wave recedes. But we believe that a paying market for good writing will survive. ScooptWords opens that market to everybody."

Notes for editors
Scoopt is a media agency that brokers commercial deals between content creators and content users.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works.

For more information, please contact:

Graham Holliday, managing editor
Email: press@scoopt.com
Phone: 07092 216363
Website: http://www.scoopt.com/words

ScooptWords interview at Problogger

Darren Rowse of the 24/7 'blogger's-blog', Problogger.net emailed over some questions about ScooptWords. You can read the interview in full at Problogger. We've already had some interesting and useful feedback in the Darren's comment box which we're answering as and when and we look forward to more.

Scoopt hits France

Tous reporters: la fin des journalistes?
Video sent by AgoraVox

The boss, Kyle Macrae, bigs up Scoopt and the power of 'us' sur Canal Plus in France along with Loic Le Meur, Dan Gilmor, Alfie Dennen and others. It's in French, but it looks good, it sounds good and I'm sure much sense is made.

Citizen semantics

The Press Gazette - a paper I sometimes write for - runs a news column on ScooptWords today. New Media reporter Martin Stabe also takes the citizen's bull by the proverbials to banter about that scourge of modern media, the term 'citizen journalism', and the reaction to a 'Citj' competition the paper is running. Yes, it's a nonsense, a daft term, but is it a temporary term? As far as the wordy end of CitJ goes, when all journalists are bloggers and all bloggers are... well... umm... bloggers, we'll just have bloggers, no? If the written word is a large part of your job in three year's time you may just find yourself at dinner parties breaking ice over Cava & canapes not with, "I'm a journalist. I write for The Sun. Could you pass the hummous?" but "I'm a blogger. I blog for the New York Times. Mmm... This falafel's divine." Read the full Press Gazette Q&A.

MediaShift scrutinizes ScooptWords

Mark Glaser at PBSMediashift does a very good job of comparing ScooptWords with a company called BlogBurst that syndicates blog content to online newspapers for free. His headline graphic, BlogBurst vs. Scoopt, is somewhat misleading as we are doing very, very different things and we don't see any 'versus' thing going on. Also, Mark does place a lot of emphasis on syndication of blog content to newspapers with no mention of the trade press or magazines. We potentially see more of a market for blog content in the trade press and magazines than newspapers, but more on that another day.

I think the concept of syndicating well written blogs in mainstream publications makes some sense — especially if you can match publications and bloggers that cover similar ground. Any service that helps editors — and ultimately readers — sift through the mountain of blogs to find the good, relevant ones will be welcomed warmly.But as far as making this idea into a business, that’s another story." Mark Glaser.

Good point. This is where we're all at, from Avon Lady bloggers to ScooptWords, BlogBurst, newspaper megablogs and beyond. Despite all the banter there are still no clear signals as to how old and new worlds will mesh long term, if mesh we do. Thanks Mark, it was a pleasure to answer your qu's and to meet in London. I'll run the full emailed Q&A with Mark later. Meanwhile, here is an exclusive shot I took of Mark blogging from Reuters in London (OK - it's just Mark's hands) and, for bonus snapshot value, one of myself (OK - it's just my back) blogging from the BBC, courtesy of Robin from Cybersoc.

UPDATE: Here's the entire Q&A.