As print newspapers around the world are merging or moving to online-only versions, eBay founder and Hawaii resident, Pierre Omidyar is looking to develop the next generation of online news.
According to a story we heard on April 22 on NPR, Omidyar is creating a subscription-only online news website for residents of Honolulu, called the Civil Beat.
The Civil Beat, which is expected to officially launch tomorrow, May 4, will be significantly different than traditional newspapers because it will rely heavily on social networking.
The goal of the Civil Beat is to engage the community in reading and commenting on the news. In addition, the journalists will leverage social media as they’re working on their stories. They’ll tweet and blog as they’re gathering information as well as share their perspectives around the experience of reporting.
Finally, how the news is aggregated will be different. The site will have topic pages, which are devoted to a particular subject such as Honolulu’s passenger rail project. The benefit to the reader will be that content around this topic will be continually updated and they’ll be able to refer back to the page for the living story.
It sounds interesting to me, but clearly the monthly subscription fee is not cheap. At $19.99 a month, people are going to need to derive significant value from the site. Otherwise, I just don’t see this being a sustainable model.
Nonetheless, it will be fascinating to see what happens with this site as newspapers continue to adapt and social media continues to grow in popularity. Clearly, people value NPR’s member stations enough to donate money during the semiannual pledge so maybe this will work.
Please let us know what you think. Would you be willing to pay a monthly fee to engage in this marketplace of news with reporters, neighbors and others in your community?