Though I took part in three of 14 JLab-funded Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund projects, first announced here last fall, I led one of them.

For Northeast Philadelphia hyperlocal NEast Philly, I helped lead the editorial direction of a project called District 172: the politics of change after state Rep. John Perzel.

• http://neastphilly.com/john-perzel/

Following the indicted former state Speaker of the House, whose corruption trial has been postponed until the fall, we covered what the impact the loss of a 30-year state leader would be on his district, particularly a small swath that had served as his political base.

Find all the coverage here.

I had the following roles:

• Reported two feature stories, including the final piece on how community building in Mayfair and elsewhere may be undergoing a sea change, and a second piece on the touchy subject of redistricting and Perzel, in addition to some smaller items.
• I interviewed Perzel’s replacement, Democrat Kevin Boyle, his staff and had Perzel fail to respond to comment following repeated attempts through his attorney.
• I spoke to more than a half dozen neighborhood leaders and others with perspective on the matter.
• With NEast Philly founder Shannon McDonald, I helped carve out the editorial direction and direct the Temple University Philadelphia Neighborhoods interns, who were our partnering organization.
• I designed the District 172 branding.
• I developed a layout for the District 172 landing page and worked with Frankford Gazette co-founder Jimmy Smiley to publish it.
• I gave copy and content to Smiley for our Players and Timeline section, two more interactive tools on the page.

In conjunction with the Technically Philly open data grant project, our Technically Media Inc. parent company has moved into a working office space at Temple University Center City at 1515 Market Street in Philadelphia.

It’s important to note that this office space is specifically for the six-month Technically Philly grant project, and so the office is used for those purposes and is only leased for that time.

It’s also important to note that we at TP take great interest in respecting, honoring and, in some ways, continuing the traditions of the past.

Having a flask on your desk isn’t about being drunk all the time, it’s about honoring Bob Woodward’s old saying: “All good work is done in defiance of management.”

Short of stereotypes of any order, journalists are close to the ground — regardless of whether we’re covering the war in Afghanistan or the school board — but we take great pride in remaining fiercely independent.

A flask — or the whiskey and beer and the cussing and the industry aphorisms — go right along with our interest in asking relevant, important questions. Or so we think. (Yes, delusions of self-importance also seem to be a journalism staple)

Come in and see the office, and we can have a drink while we talk it over.

Smart people are making calculated investments in Philadelphia’s journalism community.

• The local NPR affiliate here is getting attention for its NewsWorks online news campaign.
• The William Penn Foundation is moving ahead with its mission-orientated drive toward increasing public affairs journalism in the region.
• New ownership for the Inquirer crew can mean some fresh ideas.
• Independent publishers are always trying to find new ways to come together.

It’s clearly something about which I am passionate and devoted. It’s also something I put a lot of thought into. This weekend, I found myself returning to a thought process of the past, just free associating everything I would invest in if money was no object toward growing Philadelphia journalism.

Of course, money is a big object, but the brainstorm can help. I share my thoughts below and would love to hear what I am missing or what I seem to be paying too much attention to.

Again, this is nothing but stream of consciousness brainstorming. Take it as that, but give me your thoughts.

• OVERALL: It’s a bottom line-focused nonprofit that houses, supports and promotes for-profit ventures in news and information, in addition to public affairs-oriented nonprofit journalism. It has branding and a major landing page focused on data warehousing and partnerships.
• We’d be based off an open-source platform.
• We’d work with independent publishers and any legacy media partner who wants to get on board.
• By my (very rough) math, I figured about $4.5 million the first year, including a lot of initial startup costs, so that would fall to $2 million in annual operating costs the following year and increase from there.
• Physical space — ($1 million) A big, fat, expensive, renovated warehouse space with office space, retail front-end to bring in average citizens, maybe some art space to recognize the proliferation and variety of media. There would also be a kick ass museum documenting Philadelphia’s vibrant history of news, innovation, information and journalism. This would be near enough to Center City, but partner sites would be encouraged to offer office hours at coffee shops or wherever else in the city is relevant to their coverage. Oh, and there would also be a bike rack, roof deck and pool table.
• Incubation — ($50,000 in overhead) Using that physical space and a business services hub that might look like this and will be detailed a bit more below, I’d house young niche news sites, promising technology and development startups and other young players in the media space. I’d offer bonuses for collaboration.
• Public media space — ($50,000) Working off the promise of what WHYY has done, I’d have some shared-use space — perhaps integrated in the retail space noted above — to offer organizations, school groups and citizens. I’d hire a pack of smart college kids to sit around and answer questions and learn.
• Hub site — ($50,000) Yes, I think I would want a landing page, but while it would serve as a clearing house for featured content across all of our partners, pushing and highlighting the best of the best, it would be home to important tools, as noted below. So, anyone who creates content and is housed in my physical space or any other vetted, meaningful content producer — whether legacy, startup, community, print, online, organization, nonprofit, for-profit or other — who wants to be part can take part.
• Directory — ($70,000) A public reporter’s notebook, a local Wikipedia or Crunchbase or whatever other metaphor you need to understand it, but the biography, photo and primary personal details would be buffeted by tagged content from a core group of independent publishers and just about every and any legacy media player who can summon the technology, workflow and interest in collaborating. I was just involved in an application for Knight News Challenge money to accomplish this. While that hub site will highlight daily featured content, this directory serves as the real editorial meat connecting all the partners.
• Spiderweb of influential relationships — ($20,000) That directory would have an incredibly interactive map of personal and professional connections updated with meta information like family ties, co-sponsored legislation and other relationships. This would require upkeep but would become part of the workflow of our journalists, tracking how the relationships change in power.
• Data warehouse — ($200,000) Pushed to from the directory and partnered with the City of Philadelphia, organizations and companies, meaningful GIS, demographic, crime and other data would have a home and a place to live and be found. We would also encourage the sharing of documents to play that role that everyone is talking about, (and, please, forgive the comparison), to be something of a watered-down local Wikileaks. (Yes, I’m sorry)
• Application development — ($200,000) Using the development team noted below, we would create products that citizens can use, could be shared and, additionally, could create profit.
• CEO — ($200,000) A public face of some stature who can chase money (lots and lots of money), speak at events and look pretty. Yes, I suppose he or she should also provide meaningful vision for the future. Did I mention that this person should have to bring in lots of money in every way possible?
• Kick ass advisory board — ($50,000) Feed them well and treat them kindly, but otherwise, using the prestige of what we’re building, I’d assemble a collection of business, startup, journalism, academic, community, political and business leaders to have quarterly meetings on the sustainability, focus and direction of this entity. These people would also help bring money in, speak on our behalf and push the conversation on the future of news.
• Managing Editor — ($100,000) Someone who oversees the day-to-day management, including, perhaps, final say on what content is pushed on the hub site, though that actual work might be managed by someone lower.
• Other executives — ($300,000) To handle insurance, liability, accounting and other management.
• Sales team — ($500,000) I’d hire a business development officer and a few young, hungry, strong ad sales representatives who are web native. I’d give base salaries and offer lots of commission, performance bonuses and creative incentives to sell, not just advertising, but memberships, events, product sales and broader partnerships.
• Marketing staff — ($100,000) I’d hire a couple young, wildly creative recent graduates from the city, give them a budget and have them rotate through our partner sites, working to conceive, promote and put on inventive, inclusive events to grow knowledge, community and, likely, revenue.
• Design and development — ($400,000 ) Give me a pack of experienced engineers, developers, designers, coders and data geeks to create innovative ways of collecting, keeping, maintaining, promoting and visualizing data. Because, as old Tim Berners Lee keeps saying, the future of news is data.
• Copy editors — ($100,000) I’d have a couple of smart, young recent graduates to proof top tier content (i.e. break content into different tiers so only the most important/controversial content requires heavy editing and proofing).
• General assignment reporters — ($150,000) I want in my network a few shared reporters who would be dispatched to different partner sites depending on level of interest, importance, vacation time, etc.
• Pen and Pencil Club V 2 — The oldest journalism group in the country is in Philadelphia. I’d want to work with them to get an entire slew of new, younger journalists involved to talk to the more experienced and develop a new clubhouse for journalists and off-the-record events.
• Investigative Reporting Fellowships — ($200,000) We’d offer sweet year-long fellowship opportunities to two aggressive, respected, wildly successful journalists to spend an entire bloody year on a single project, with updates along the way.
• Reporter blogs — ($5,000) Any damn reporter, editor, designer, developer, executive or freakin’ janitor who doesn’t already have a personal site but wants one, gets one. YOURNAME.HUBSITE.com and you blog about the process of doing whatever it is you’re doing. Create a brand, develop an audience, share your work, push out to other ideas and, hell, if we can your ass, I’ll personally export your archives and hand deliver them.

How I’d return my investment:

• Equity stake — in each individual company we incubated, which includes niche news sites, hyperlocal communities and, as noted above, technology companies to help them all work better.
• Fiscal agency — In one way or another, I’d serve to physically and financially host damn near any relevant project, grant or research initiative I could find, skimming money off the top of each major grant-funded activity that came through.
• Application development – Using the data we’d collect, our development team would create applications that would also have  monetary gains, whether for consumers or, more likely, other commercial and entrepreneurial enterprises.
• Advertising network — In addition to cutting costs on lots of shared services, yes, I’d have an advertising network across all my partner platforms that would start by looking something like this.
• Commission on everything — I’d sell underwriting, advertising, event sponsorships, trainings, tutorials and every damn service any of the partners would conceive of across the entire network and take a cut on every solitary dime.
• Membership services — Using the directory described above, I’d sell memberships to edit profiles, in a way that we are moving toward doing at Technically Philly, and give a small kickback one way or another to the partner sites providing content. This membership would offer reduced-price services and event attendance for all of the partnering sites.
• Some limited rent — Reduced-rate rent for the more advanced, incubated companies, in addition to some limited retail space.
• God damned gift shop — It’d be a low-margin, profitable loss leader to bring people into another part of the physical space but we’d sell schwag from all of our partnering and incubating companies, that could get a cut, in addition to Philadelphia-centric merchandise.
• Consulting and publishing services — We’re good at things as journalists. Check back with me.

Who I’d partner with:

• A very fine line needs to be drawn between competition and avoiding redundancy, both of which are important but both of which can come into conflict.
• Anyone who would get stuff done — It doesn’t have to be perfect but it has to be done and developed and moved. I will take people who get shit done over any aspiring perfectionist or brilliant star any damn day.
• Temple University Philadelphia Neighborhoods Senior Journalism Capstone class – Half of your students are in year-long internships with our partner sites or on broader research projects and the other half are on-the-ground handling our North Philadelphia coverage.
• WHYY and Newsworks — If their hyperlocal movement continues, I’d happily push, promote and support in anyway. I’d hope they’d be a partner generally, so we would push their way. I’d hope to create co-branded podcasts, so this region could have some meaningful, regular audio content of power.
• KYW 1060 Newsradio – Handle any need for us to offer traffic updates, please, ’cause I don’t wanna.
• TV news — Whoever jumps on board first would be our TV partner. TV news is great for quick hits, so we’d partner around reducing the need to hit breaking coverage of fire, crime and the like.We get multimedia content and don’t have to waste resources.
• Metro — I’d leverage all of my partners and say, hey, let us take over one day of the week your print issue.
• Inquirer and Daily News — We’d share content for suresies, if they wanted some of our longer-form research and reporting. Also, naturally, if they’d want it, I’d want them in the tent to push from our hub site. We also would shoot to come together for events. Our sports coverage would be limited, so we’d push their way.
• Philly.com — Any revenue models they have, we’d want to support. Maybe unique incubation ideas.
• Comcast SportsNet — If we could find a partnership around sports coverage, I’d happily leave that much aside. So we’d just push their way also.
• Independents Hall — Around development, incubation or whatever. I just want them in the tent.
• Every incubation and VC in the region — Anyone who knows the business and startup scene should be involved here in one way or another.
• Philadelphia Business Journal — Events. Listings, the directory perhaps.
• Every neighborhood newsweekly who cares — If you don’t have a website or bad one and want a better one, we’ll give you one at NEWSWEEKLY.HUBSITE.com. Either way, a la the Newseum, I’d want the front pages of every print newsweekly (and print product of any kind, actually) on my site to then push their way.
• Every college news outlet with a pulse — Join our network, use our tools, hang out at our events, learn and get in the pipeline to becoming the future of Philadelphia news. (Note, I care more about college newspapers, radio stations and other extra curricular groups because, in my experience, these are the kids who succeed, not the schlubs who just show up for class).
• Spot.Us – I would want to be the East Coast hub for David Cohn’s baby. Rather than citywide coverage, I’d want to make this an integrated part of a specific niche, like city hall coverage, perhaps a partnership with one of the groups below.
• Meaningful mission-orientated nonprofits — The Committee of Seventy, the National Constitution Center, the Economy League, the Chamber of Commerce and any other large, mission-orientated nonprofit should have a role in content creation and partnership.
• Pen and Pencil Club — As noted above, there is huge knowledge here. I would want to preserve it and celebrate it.

From Flickr user IceNineJon

Image of Old City Philadelphia cobblestone courtesy of Flickr user IceNineJon.

Niche news sites need to be brought together to strengthen the future of journalism.

Last year, we at Technically Philly started that hunt with a Knight News Challenge application for News Inkubator, a business services hub and incubation space for independent news startups. We didn’t make the cut, but we have taken to bootstrapping the concept by starting with an advertising network.

Today is the 2010 Knight News Challenge grant deadline, and we’ve continued that focus.

We took time to learn that our News Inkubator proposal was too broad and focused on trying to find smaller, more actionable steps, particularly ones that could work with other larger investment.

In doing so, we’re introducing Cobblestone, a proposed tagging WordPress plugin that will feed a searchable, dynamically updated, mobile-friendly directory platform homepage with content from various partners.

See our Knight application here.

Though we think it has real monetary value — considering it is based on a Technically Philly directory aimed at a membership model — this is a decidedly more editorial-first focus. Get the niche sites together, and we can build revenue together.

Perhaps the first question we expect to be asked: why is this different than Google alerts and RSS feeds?

Cobblestone gives tag-specific and cross-partner content some place to live. Once the alerts of Bill Green or the feeds from each of the partner sites pass in time, they are lost. This creates a true homepage.

Below, see our application, which you can also see here:

Project Title: Cobblestone: A shared Crunchbase to unite local independent news sites

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $65,000

Expected amount of time required to complete project:1

Total cost of project including all sources of funding:$65,000

Describe your project: Cobblestone is a shared, Crunchbase-like, editorial directory that will unite local independent news sites. The tagging WordPress plugin will feed a searchable, dynamically updated, mobile-friendly directory platform homepage with content from various partners.

For example, if established niche news sites like PlanPhilly and NEast Philly both “tag” Philadelphia City Councilman Bill Green in a story, there should be a central place to find those stories on a timeline of news about the councilman from all local news outlets . Tag pages, like ones for city council members, will bring together a fractured ecosystem of independent content providers by sharing a search-engine optimized homepage. This project will create tag-specific pages for all local people, companies, organizations, groups and places that will feature a chronological feed from all those content producers. The homepage will update as new stories are published and will have advanced filtering capabilities.

What unmet need does your proposal answer?: While Philadelphia has a diverse group of news outlets, these sites are often not connected in any way that extends beyond a hyperlink. Providing a shared directory will be the first step in exploring the ways local media can collaborate with one another. Cobblestone’s homepage can also act as a place where content consumers can discover news again, offering the serendipity of past news media.

How is your idea new?: During the past year, many mainstream and independent media outlets in Philadelphia have pursued content partnerships. Cobblestone is the next generation of content partnership by offering a shared taxonomy structure that lives well beyond the story’s publish date.

Large local news sites, such as The Texas Tribune, have a robust directory, however the directory is only powered by a single news outlet. Crunchbase only serves a single niche. However, what if every local news ecosystem had its own Crunchbase bringing together the work, insight, knowledge and audience of local niche news sites? Cobblestone’s homepage could also serve as an experiment in the next generation of aggregation and curation on a local scale. The homepage could eventually have “trending” topics and taxonomy that would highlight the most relevant news source for a specific topic, much like Google News.

What will you have changed by the end of the project?: By the end of our project, Cobblestone will have created a tangible relationship between independent news sites in Philadelphia. Additionally, Cobblestone’s homepage will track content powered by the city’s most meaningful content producers while completing an open source product to be shared with other hyperlocal ecosystems.

Our project will also serve as the basis for actionable sustainability ventures, like a shared membership model and create a robust, central landing page and service for the region’s news and information, growing the serendipity of community awareness of readers.

Why are you the right person or team to complete this project?: We have meaningful experience in the three primary pillars of this project. Technically Philly has an existing WordPress-based Directory platform that pulls our content and offers outsider user editing and functionality. (http://technicallyphilly.com/directory)

For an advertising network, we have brought together independent niche news sites (http://newsinkubator.com/proan), all of whom are readily interested in collaboration. Finally because of our coverage and our roles in various communities, we have relationships with Philadelphia’s legacy and independent media partners, in addition to developers and designers, all of whom can help ensure a locally-focused, collaborative and successful project.

What terms best describe your project?:

Collaboration.

Here in Philadelphia, there is an existing news ecosystem. The challenge is using the combined efforts of these sites to create an economically sustainable and editorially innovative news and information resource for the citizens of Philadelphia. We hope that other cities can also use our technology to create similar products for their hometown.

Community.

Cobblestone will bring together various niche audiences of Philadelphia that care about similar public and community affairs but are increasingly segmented. By bridging these disparate sects, growing collective audience and pooling resources and research, Philadelphia will have a strengthened news network and a more empowered citizenry.

Context.

Much like how a person’s Facebook account aggregates social activity, Cobblestone’s pages will act as a news feed for the people, places and organizations that matter to Philadelphians. Because Cobblestone will be powered by local independent media, readers will be getting their news produced by niche media without existing in a “silo” of a single news site. This will help readers understand how news and information impacts different communities and Philadelphia as a whole.

Have you applied to the Knight News Challenge previously?: Yes

Credit to Sean Blanda for the Cobblestone name.

Today is the deadline to put 150 words together that could help change the direction of arts in Philadelphia.

The Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia is a three-year, $9 million initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. We’re seeking the best ideas in the arts. We’re investing $9 million, to be matched by other funders, to impact the arts in your hometown. We are seeking the most innovative ideas in the arts to inspire and enrich Philadelphia’s communities. [Source]

Philadelphia is just the second city in which Knight is running this arts challenge, following the foundation’s home of Miami. Get your questions answered here or submit here.

On a train ride home, I brainstormed a dozen ideas for the arts challenge, seven of which I thought were clear and concise enough that they’d be worth submitting. While only a couple directly relate to my work with technology community news site Technically Philly, as venture capitalist Fred Wilson recently wrote (H/T Karl Martino), there is great cross over between a maturing creative economy and an aged arts world.

So, I find it relevant to share what I’ve submitted, which I will do below.

First, I’d like to say that it’s clear that the Knight Foundation, in both its News Challenge and other public grant programs, has had an enormous impact on what grant applications can look like, creating a more open, transparent process and making the first step about little more than the idea so that more people and concepts come through.

If I had a lengthy grant application process staring me in the face, I’d likely have submitted none. Instead, I brainstormed and applied more than a half dozen times. Not because they’re necessarily the seven best ideas but because I felt like there was something of value there and getting those ideas into the public conversation could help foster something beautiful.

I encourage you to see a few strong suggestions from Alex Hillman and, humbly, see my own below and submit yours here.

As a side note, Hillman beautifully and importantly says this: “Having Knight resources doesn’t mean that there is a green light that we don’t already have, because we don’t wait for permission. Having Knight resources doesn’t provide the validation that these ideas are valuable, because I’m confident that they are each an evolution of already-in-progress movements.”

TITLE: Public Data Visualization Display Series
CATEGORY: Visual Arts

We would like to create a series of multimedia, interactive public art displays meant to visualize a series of important, available municipal government data sets, like campaign contributions, legislative votes, demographic shifts and more. These public data visualizations will be placed in various neighborhoods of Philadelphia that wouldn’t necessarily have access to the three fundamental, important concepts that intersect in this project: art, technology and public affairs journalism. Public art has been a mainstay of a 20th century movement to increase access to culture, and there is a growing movement of using online data visualization techniques to make important government data and information easier to understand. This project would combine those techniques in an innovative way.

TITLE: Arts Investment Pitch Event Series

CATEGORY: Media

We want to trial a series of art demo and pitch events, in which artists from a similar type of work share their recent work and make a pitch on new projects they want to try. In the audience, in addition to other artists, supporters, students and community leaders, will be welcomed those people and organizations interested in perhaps commissioning or otherwise supporting the direction of a proposed project. The demo portion of an artist’s presentation serves to not only inspire other artists but show to those interested in possibly supporting art work in Philadelphia what he or she has done. The pitch portion of an artist’s presentation will serve to attract those interested in collaborating, sponsoring or otherwise supporting.

TITLE: Public Arts and Media Incubation Space
CATEGORY: Media

We would like to create a physical space in which artists and other creative types could apply for short-term — one to three to six month — stays to work on specific projects that require certain types of space. In exchange for the space, those artists housed there would be required to set aside a certain amount of their time to training and mentoring average people, students and children in their art. A communal space would be used for public displays, interaction, collaboration and conversation. This project would help create a hub through which artists of various forms could come together.

TITLE: Flash Art Education
CATEGORY: Crafts and Traditional Arts

Working with community groups, the city’s most talented artists and intimate knowledge of the city’s neighborhoods, we will create a series of flash education and exploration sessions on a variety of art forms at dozens of street corners. Offering starter kits and information about art programs throughout the region, our team will, with some advanced promotion, land with a respective community group in different parts of the city prepared to offer a top flight display and direction of art. Picture a clutch of water colorists appearing in the Fairhill neighborhood of North Philadelphia with basic tools to give away after a display of their craft and introduction to those around. Then, a handful of violinists land on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia to catch the eye of young people and share information about programs that could offer training.

TITLE: Oral History Public Display
CATEGORY: Visual Arts

We would like to record oral histories about specific neighborhoods from those who know them best, which would then be shared and displayed in different neighborhoods of the city. Philadelphia, they say, is a city of neighborhoods. Still, the city is not known for fostering much conversation, knowledge and respect for people of various neighborhoods. Collaborating with existing organizations, groups and initiatives in Philadelphia, like PhilaPlace and First Person Arts, we would create installations in various neighborhoods that use audio and visual media to tell the stories of a different neighborhood. The project could be rotated throughout the city before bringing it together in a central space to better foster understanding and appreciation of different neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

TITLE: Community Mass Transit Takeover
CATEGORY: Visual Arts

We would like to improve using multimedia art a small selection of mass transit stations in Philadelphia. Recognizing that the city’s subway, train, trolley and bus stations are the hubs of many communities, we would use public art of various forms to create an atmosphere more representative of that specific neighborhood’s distinct history, culture and influence. Partnering with SEPTA, the Mural Arts Program community groups and individuals, we could create large scale interactive, public art displays to unite with Philadelphia’s famed murals and find other ways to make select stations more neighborhood specific, like having a respected community member be the recorded voice of that station or stop, both in its on-transit announcement and in related directives and announcements. This project could spur forward many existing plans and proposals and would encourage other neighborhoods and groups to do similar work, in beautifying and localizing our mass transit.

TITLE: Cross-platform Arts Community Calendar and Database
CATEGORY: Media

Recognizing the disparate silos in Philadelphia’s arts communities, we would like to create an easily shared, updated and spread community calendar and database of  arts events, projects and installations throughout the city. This project will be heavy on collaboration, working with theartblog.org, BroadStreetReview.com, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corp.’s uwishunu.com and TechnicallyPhilly.com, allowing high art, public art, contemporary art, tourism staples and technology and design communities to come together to show the strongest, broadest voice. Highlighting all of what the city’s art communities have to offer will encourage collaboration and foster greater reach.

These are only ideas and just my own. What are yours? Submit them here.

I’m proud to say that I’ll have a small part in three of the fourteen inaugural reporting projects funded by the Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund, as announced Tuesday.

Funded by the William Penn Foundation and administered by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, a center of American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C, the $5,000 micro-grant awardees were based on recommendations from an April 2010 report by J-Lab.

The fund has a focus on collaboration, so technology news site Technically Philly is partnering with development news site PlanPhilly and alt-weekly City Paper on one and just PlanPhilly on a second. NEast Philly is working with Temple University’s noted capstone course Philadelphia Neighborhoods on its proposal.

Read more about the three projects I’ll be a part of below and find the entire list of awardees here.

• The Abandoned City. The City of Philadelphia is the largest owner of abandoned properties in the city. The City Paper, working with PlanPhilly.com and TechnicallyPhilly.com, will compile the first publicly accessible master list and interactive database of these properties and examine how they came to be owned by taxpayers and why they are not being sold or redeveloped.
• Broadband2035. A look at the economic impact of broadband connectivity – or lack thereof – in three diverse city neighborhoods to help inform the development of Philadelphia’s 2035 strategic plan now in the works. By TechnicallyPhilly.com working with PlanPhilly.com.
• Neighborhood Development, Politics and their Relationship. An examination of the revitalization of a commercial corridor in Northeast Philadelphia’s Mayfair neighborhood and any ties to a local politician awaiting trial on corruption charges. By NEast Philly and Temple University’s PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com.

Funding and reporting should get under way later this year, all three of the projects are expected for roughly six months.

Today, more than a month after we officially launched and longer than a week after being rejected by the primary organization we directed the proposal, we at Technically Philly introduced News Inkubator to our readers.

It’s a tweaked, matured and better-branded version of what I first introduced here in October. It’s a business services hub and collaborative newsroom for niche news sites in Philadelphia. It’s a pitch to create the mechanism that we believe would create the next generation of profitable, localized news coverage.

Over at Technically Philly, a news site for technology and innovation in Philadelphia that I helped launch in February, we do a lot of coverage of startups. In doing so, we’d speak to a lot of smart 20-somethings with business plans and ideas who were handed thousands of dollars, time, mentorship and space to foster ideas. We couldn’t see why, particularly at a time of turmoil, the same opportunity wouldn’t exist for media startups.

Of course, what’s a touch different about TP when compared to other Web-based startups is that, like others across the country, we’re trying to build positive revenue around the preposterous value proposition of community-focused news, ours being the rich community of technologists, innovators and entrepreneurs in Philadelphia.

Early on in our development of this site, we found others who were trying on their own to develop platforms from which they could generate revenue to cover the costs of covering communities.

We watched Dan Hirschorn hustle for his creation pa2010, which regularly contributes to the dialogue of Pennsylvania election news. We watched — and, full disclosure, one of us helped — Shannon McDonald grow NEast Philly, the city’s preeminent hyperlocal news site with incessant attention to Northeast Philadelphia. And, yes, we watched everyone’s favorite superhero Eric Smith enter his third year of leading Geekadelphia as the voice box for a young, hip, bright Web class of Philadelphians.

All of them smart 20-somethings with business plans, ideas and, yes, even existing audiences. These, we believe, are glimmers of how profitable, professional journalism can exist in the future, albeit with reduced overhead and serious help from our communities. We need more of them.

To welcome more, not only do we need to unite around the obvious — like a metro wide ad network — we need to share expenses over ad-sales, marketing, administration, libel and health insurance and so many other banalities of business.

What’s different than just creating an online newspaper is the step-first decision to create an editorially-decentralized product with distinct and individualized revenue plans. It’s as if your newspaper let the business section, city hall bureau and arts and entertainment desk run loose and sell to their targeted audiences.

Yes, the idea was formulated as a pitch for the Knight News Challenge. The folks at Knight let us know quite quickly that this project isn’t their ball of yarn at the moment, but we’re not done yet. There are more than a few dialogues we’re waiting on in early 2010, but — because we’re not holding out breath — we at Technically Philly are still working hard to develop our flagship and try to slowly, on our own, bootstrap toward News Inkubator.

What do you think about that?

With an Oct. 15 deadline looming, I’ve had my hand in two submissions requesting funds from the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge program.

One I wrote in conjunction with Shannon McDonald, requesting $40,000 to launch a Neighborhood Correspondents program for NEast Philly, a hyperlocal news site for Northeast Philadelphia.

The second was a proposal from the three of us behind Technically Philly, seeking $250,000 to help establish a sales, marketing and business services company to help grow and unite niche news sites in Philadelphia.

Of course, we were knocked from contention for a $10,000 Knight-Batten grant by the New York Times, but we think we have a good pitch on another day. Who knows what could happen?

Give both a look, comment, rate and spread the word. We won’t find out until November if we’re in the running and not until 2010 if we’d get any money. Still, a kid can dream, right?

See briefs of the two pitches below.

NEast Neighborhood Correspondents: create a sustainable network of professionally trained citizen journalists to cover their own neighborhood civic meetings and local events. ($40,000)

The details: We intend to rent a small, centrally located office that will serve as an open newsroom for residents and our small staff. We’ll choose a resident from each neighborhood to receive basic journalism training, professional support, access to multimedia equipment and a small payment of roughly $15 per post, if they share an update from their neighborhood at least once a week. They will include coverage of monthly civic meetings, but also updates on community events and interviews with other residents. Their coverage will then be curated by our professionally trained editor, whose time will be freer to track trends and write larger, more in-depth pieces when necessary.

Read full proposal here.

The staff blog of Philadelphia CityPaper caught wind of this.

Newsadelphia: a business, sales and marketing service for Philadelphia hyperlocal news startups ($250,000)

The details: Newsadelphia is an administrative, sales and marketing hub for a confederation of hyperlocal and otherwise targeted online-only news sites within the city of Philadelphia. By offering a variety of services for Web-based organizations like sales, IT support, event planning and marketing to decentralized editorial products, we will empower these sites to focus on their individualized editorial visions while creating sustainable, profitable media businesses. After hiring a lead sales agent and business manager, and compensating other journalists to launch similarly targeted sites built on solid business plans, we project a hub of individualized niche sites will be profitable and able to collectively afford the sales and administrative staff independently.

Read full proposal here.

Somethat that wasn’t appropriate to put in the final product but I loved: We are not newspaper refugees seeking grant money to create another foundation-dependent nonprofit news site, but rather journalism entrepreneurs who have already built a successful online-only news product and want the funding to see it connected to a variety of other hyperlocal and Philadelphia-specific verticals to begin to completely cover an important, historic city that is at risk of losing its best news-gathering organizations due to contraction and debt.

So does either have a host? Any ways we can improve? Anything else we should looking at to make these better before next week’s deadline?

Update: We lost.

Grant money in journalism is flowing freely in a tightened economy and a historic juncture in print media.

Seems like an opportunity.

So, my two partners and I, who founded Technically Philly, applied for the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism, a $10,000 grant to support new ideas in news. See our submission here.

We thought bringing together two niches — the geography of Philadelphia and the industry of technology and innovation — and diversifying revenue streams — going beyond advertising — was a new enough model that it might catch the eye of a judge or two.

We walked into a meaningful business, social and startup community in a major metro region’s creative economies and began reporting, relying on our interests in social media, community reporting and professional and ethical journalism.

We recently introduced advertising — a small first step in monetization –and feel that a grant for $10,000 could afford the three of us an opportunity to work full time for perhaps as much two months or more. Considering how pleased we are with our traffic growth and the response from the community, we’re thrilled by even the chance at the opportunity to give full time to a project none of us have been able to offer even part time thus far.

Unfortunately and entirely unsurprisingly, there is some stiff competition from the nearly 100 submissions that were entered.  Below I share some of the more interesting submissions I saw and my thoughts on our viability.

Big names

• CNN/Facebook Inauguration Collaboration — CNN.com collaborated with Facebook to create an interactive online experience where viewers shared their experiences of Obama’s inauguration from 8 a.m. till the last inaugural ball. Four anchors provided coverage from the Capitol grounds in DC, while a special report was given from the CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta. Online users could update their Facebook status directly from CNN.com Live video player in real time. On Facebook friends could click the CNN tag and join the live chat on CNN.com. There were 26 million live video streams on CNN.com, 1.3 million concurrent streams, 2 million Facebook status updates, and 1.2 million RSVPs on Facebook before the event. I was confused by another Facebook-related submission that already took place — where is the money meant to go?
• This American Life Live! — This American Life took advantage of HD satellite technology to broadcast a live performance to movie theaters across the U.S. More than 50,000 people gathered in their communities to watch this broadcast. This American Life utilized podcasts and social networking sites to promote the event and survey fans before the event to get feedback. An encore presentation was held due to massive interest.
• Ledger Live — Breaking down the barriers between the newsroom and the community, “LedgerLive” committed to video in the summer of 2008. Using different types of social media, the Star-Ledger’s webcast showcases the newspapers videos, brings viewers into the newsroom, and includes them in some content decisions. Columnists and reporters are guests on the show.
• The AP Economic Stress Index — It combines unemployment, foreclosure, and bankruptcy data down to the county level to create an index of the overall health of the economy. The data are displayed on a clickable map and the data can be mashed up in several ways to dig deep into the numbers.

Social Media

• Tagging Names in Facebook — This facebook application would allow users to tag names in news stories. As tagging photos on Facebook is so popular, the hope is that tagging names will bring a new audience to news articles. This application was developed by ASU engineering and journalism students who are very familiar with facebook. This is set to premiere during varsity sports season, when athletes, coaches and parents are likely to tag.
• Twitter integration — The Des Moines Register used Twitter to help report on Iowa’s gay marriage decision by creating a hashtag, aggregating Twitter users’ tweets using that hashtag on their Web site, and getting live tweets from reporters after the decision. Their hashtag was listed on Twitter’s top trending topics, and they are planning more Twitter reporting projects for the future.
• Video Your Vote — “Video Your Vote” records voters experiences of the 2008 election by providing over 1,000 flip video cameras, using voters cameras, and teaching citizens laws regarding recording and voting. 2,500 videos were received from 50 states and several foreign countries to depict the election moments from different points of view. PBS, the NewsHour and YouTube collaborated to create this project in efforts to share the realities from the day, which gained 300,000 views on YouTube.
• What Is Barack Doing? – What Is Barack Doing? aggregates presidential news from many different sources, from the major networks to social networks. It uses good Web design practices to increase usability and accessibility.

Philadelphia

• Street Level Philadelphia — After working as a photographer for 10 years for the Philadelphia Daily News, Jim MacMillan taught himself how to shoot, edit, and produce video for the Web and created 1-2 minute video reports. He reported, filmed, voiced, edited, and produced the videos alone, and tried to tell the stories of Philadelphia on a personal level.
• PlanPhilly — An organization that reports on and seeks to bring transparency and openness to Philadelphia’s design, development, and planning as an experiment in project-based journalism. It has developed partnerships with some of Philadelphia’s mainstream media outlets, and seen their unique visitors double in the last year.
• Philadelphia Neighborhoods from the Temple University School of Communications Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab class — Temple U. project covered 20 predominantly minority Philadelphia neighborhoods by sending student reporters to do multimedia reporting. The program also trained community residents to use programs like Final Cut Pro, Flash, videography and blogging so residents could tell their own stories. One story about a racist police officer generated enough mainstream media coverage that the officer was fired. (A story written by Shannon McDonald certainly seems to have put the program’s recent incarnation on the map)

Others

• AmherstWire.com — A student-run online magazine, a project of the Journalism program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The site offers a wide array of content, including various beats localizing current events, a video blog that tracks the pulse of campus opinion, and the Global Beat Blog written by students studying abroad. The main section of the site includes periodic, in-depth feature packages that tackle major issues from multiple angles using non-traditional storytelling techniques. Over the course of three semesters, a small group of full-time students were able to produce a high quality, professional news Web site that attracted a worldwide audience with a budget of well under $1,000.
• American Indian online journalism — To interact with readers and to attract a younger audience, The Circle (the sole source of print journalism for the American Indian community in the upper Midwest) has created an enhanced web edition. This allows readers with limited access to transportation to interact with other communities and lets users share their stories on the site. As of June 1, 2009, there are over 350 registered, and 7 bloggers getting ready to go online with Native-specific topics.
• Newspaper Tycoon from Eastern Illinois University — An idea for a video game wherein the gamer is a newspaper mogul responsible for all the aspects (both business and journalistic) of the newspapers he/she controls. The game has not yet been developed so it does not exist. At this point it is just an idea.

I’m personally unsure of proposals dominated by only-citizen contributors — concerns about their stability and where advertising money is going. There are some innovative ideas, but I am happy with our submission. If not the best, I feel like ours is a model that could offer important coverage for other communities and, as I wrote above, I think that $10,000 grand prize could have a far greater impact on our project than many of the others. I also am proud that we are moving ahead with our own monetization, so that money will only help us surge forward toward a truly sustainable product.

Do we have any chance? What are some other submissions you like?