Start-Up Vision

[Minuteman]

For start-up, I think we can tap into a vast resource we have in the grassroots at the moment. Alot of our members have their own blogs and are very good writers. I wouldnt mind trying to bring a few of them on board to do some daily blogs.

Maybe have some of our better video editors/producers make some commercial type ads.

I also wouldnt mind, and I will have to do some research on it since im not really a journalism major, finding a radio personality that could do a show.

But its late and my brain is starting to turn to mush. Just some initial thoughts

[DirtMcGirt]

great idea... the committee of correspondence like back in the day...

[literatim]

I am a writer, though I don't write for a blog.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[AceNZ]

Content isn't going to be a problem. However, I think it's good to have a plan written down -- both for our use and for potential investors to see.

I suggest a "push/pull" model:

On the push side, we provide a mechanism for people to submit news, in a wide variety of forms (video, audio, articles, links, etc). This might be associated with an online forum, to allow discussion of possible broadcasts. Submissions would be screened in a variety of ways (copyright issues, authenticity, duplicates, etc), and the ones that pass are then fed to a production team that writes text to introduce the story, transition from one subject to another, provide background, etc, and that gets them ready to be injected into the next edition of the broadcast.

On the pull side, we hire a handful of 2-person news teams (an interviewer/talker and a cameraperson). They should eventually be paid positions, although maybe they could start out volunteer. The teams travel nationally and eventually internationally to locations where news is developing. They shoot their stories with hand-held HD digital cameras. Tapes can be either express mailed back to HQ, or sent over the net if adequate bandwidth is available. Once back at HQ, they enter the same production cycle as above.

We should also have our own paid staff that keeps an eye on worldwide news that might be of interest. Someone on that team should be responsible for obtaining video rebroadcast rights when needed.

There are also a lot of partnering possibilities, as Live_Free says. We have room to be very creative on that front, as well as with advertising, etc.

[tbarnett17]

In order for positions to be paid positions, you'll need to have advertisers and thus making it a "for profit" news network. I'm sure finding advertisers would be relatively easy... major audience + exposure times = revenue.

I do agree that if started and ran properly, this could be a MAJOR network/media stream. -Tyler

[AceNZ]

Yes, I agree that finding advertisers will be relatively easy. If we do this right, they will be coming to us.

However, I think we should plan from the beginning to move away from traditional 30/60 second spots, and toward things like product placement, newscaster-driven ads, etc -- like how they've been done on radio forever. Make the ads part of the program, use tickers, pop-ins, etc. The days of traditional ads are numbered as technology like Tivo spreads.