Blottr

Blottr was a citizen journalism news website based in the United Kingdom and started in August 2010 by entrepreneur Adam Baker. Originally featuring hyperlocal news in London, the site grew to cover a total of eight UK cities: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester and Manchester. In October 2011 Blottr expanded outside of the UK to Blottr France and Blottr Germany.[1] Blottr peaked at more than 5000 contributors and more than 1.4 million unique visitors a month.[2] Blottr was shut down in April 2014.

Blottr
URLblottr.com
LaunchedAugust 2010
Current statusOffline

Platform

Users who sign up for Blottr could add text, tags, videos and photos to one another's news stories in a wiki-platform. Blottr featured regular columnists whose blog posts were not able to be edited. Blottr circulated news through its website, Twitter, Facebook and a weekly digest email. In order to rate user-generated content, the site used an "authentication algorithm" which rated users based on influence, number of revisions to a story, number of contributors, and more.[3]

In July 2011, Blottr also launched an iPhone app, Papparappzi, which allowed would-be citizen journalists to capture photos and footage of news happening around them and then easily upload it to the Blottr website.[4]

Business model

Blottr monetized by selling licensing to its crowdsourced news platform, called NewsPoint, starting in June 2011.[5] The site secured an angel investment in May 2011 worth up to £1 million to expand its operations. The investor was Mark Pearson, founder of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk.[6]

Contributors participated in a revenue-sharing scheme in which they received £1 for every thousand page views.[7]

Notable Stories

In May 2011, Blottr beat BBC and SkyNews by three hours in a story about a London bomb threat.[8] During the London riots of August 2011, founder Adam Baker said the site broke the news of riots in Ealing and Woolwich before mainstream news outlets.[9]

Awards and recognition

In 2011 startups.co.uk awarded Blottr its "Innovative Business of the Year" and "Most Disruptive Business" awards at the Tech City UK Entrepreneurship festival. Startups.co.uk said in a statement that "Blottr has real potential to become a very strong digital brand name in the next few years, and is a fabulous example of British creativity and digital prowess".[10] The 2011 Europas also gave Blottr highly commended status for media, recruitment and education.[11]

References
  1. Marshall, Sarah (17 October 2011). "Citizen Journalism site Blottr expands into France and Germany". Guardian UK. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  2. Klaushofer, Alex (31 October 2011). "Under the spotlight: Citizen journalism". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  3. Alex, Klaushofer (31 October 2011). "Under the spotlight: Citizen journalism site Blottr". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  4. "Apps rush: Star Trek, Paparappzi, Polyphonic Spree and more". Guardian UK. 12 July 2011. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  5. Sawers, Paul (3 June 2011). "Blottr launches NewsPoint, and opens up crowdsourced reporting to publishers". The Next Web. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  6. O'Hear, Steve (5 May 2011). "Citizen Journalism is alive and well in the UK - Blottr scores Angel investment". Tech Crunch Europe. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  7. Klaushofer, Alex (31 October 2011). "Under the spotlight: Citizen journalism". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
  8. Harford, Tim. "A citizen journalism model that actually breaks news?". Virtual Economics. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  9. Klaushofer, Alex. "Under the Spotlight: Citizen Journalism Cite Blottr". New Model Journalism. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  10. "Innovative Business of the Year, Blottr". Startups.co.uk. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  11. Bould, Sarah. "Citizen Journalism Website Celebrates Two Awards". Hold the Front Page. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
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