Shaping the participatory future of the news
The aim of iwitness24 is to not only capture reader content but to make our audience genuinely feel a part of our news-gathering process…This is all about developing a strong, loyal readership base that will stick with us into the future because it feels totally engaged with our newspapers.
Richard Willner - Audience Relations Developer
Archant
They’re all talking about Citizenside:
It’s a nifty platform, created in partnership with community news organisation Citizenside, with iPhone and Android apps that enable people to send content via smartphones.
Roy Greenslade
Guardian
The website recently launched a system whereby users are rewarded with points for posting videos, commenting and answering polls. As they amass points for covering events, they get promoted from a stringer to a correspondent and eventually are made editor-in-chief of their region.
Wall Street Journal
Rather than give personalized feedback on every single submission—a nearly impossible task—Citizenside uses game mechanics as a quality control process
Columbia Journalism Review
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A platform for Open Journalism
Click play and you'll see
Click play and you'll see
Increase Volume, Improve Quality, Save Time, Make Money
Open Journalism Tools
News community
Deepen your relationship with your audience using an online space for them to share their images and videos with each other, and directly to your UGC inbox.
Social features connect members to create active communities.
Game Dynamics
An intuitive feedback mechanism for users that motivates and rewards the submission of good quality material.
Not just pointless points.
Mobile Apps
Dramatically increase reach and engagement with our award-winning mobile application.
Receive photos and videos from iOS and Android users.
Verification
Simplify the editorial task of sourcing, verifying and publishing material submitted by your audience.
Accomplish more in less time than every before possible.
Engagement Metrics
Identify top users and their behaviors to judge the real-time health of your community.
React to the habits of your users and better target your advertising.
Game Dynamics in Networked News
How to create compelling interactive experiences to attract, motivate and retain a news community.
“At the most basic level, any news operation that wants to survive must attract, motivate and retain a network of active users – whatever its business model. This is precisely what game design is about: creating intrinsically rewarding experiences.“










