Beacon (YC W14) Offers A New Approach To Crowdfunding Journalism

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/12/beacon-y-combinator-launch/

by zmitri • 12 years ago

48 13 12 years ago

techcrunch.com

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

cofounder of Beacon here - would love to get grilled by the HN denizens and get feedback about what we're doing!

ScottBurson• 12 years ago

Don't have time right at this moment to take a close look, but I love the idea!

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

no worries - hit me up if you have thoughts you want to share later - adrian@beaconreader.com

frankdenbow• 12 years ago

Do you plan on helping journalists distribute their content outside of the main Beacon site? I imagine some have their own following but others want to use the site to help gain readership on/off your platform.

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

Maybe in the future but the reality is that the last 10 years have been focused on distribution of content as the primary goal. We're focused on monetization, and helping creators make more money and delivering more value for readers who support them.

thecosas• 12 years ago

I see you mention bonuses on the writer section of the site. How does the distribution work?

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

It's something we're still playing around with but one of the early issues we had was that some writers would come onto Beacon with a smaller subscriber base, but would add a really valuable article into the system that everyone read, and not feel fairly compensated.

If you generate value on Beacon, we want to make sure that's reflected in money.

So we came up with the idea of the bonus pool as a way to reward writers when their articles were widely recommended.

Currently we have a "Worth It" button which is basically like an upvote or a like - except it equates into real dollars.

Again, it's pretty new, but we're very excited about it. Last month, we had a relatively new journalist who's top article paid her out $1200!

slvv• 12 years ago

Obviously you're focusing on journalists now, but there are other groups of content creators who might be into your product; I see cartoonists and photographers are mentioned in the article. I wonder whether this model would be useful to young academics, too - especially those who are moving to careers outside of academia but might still like to conduct and share research. Publishing in academic journals is (supposed to be) a way to get your research out there, and peer review does matter. But academic journals don't pay their authors, and often have very limited audiences. It seems like Beacon could help solve those problems. Maybe another interested population for you in the future!

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

Yes! So first off with regards to photographers we're starting to experiment with that. Dmitri and I built an app called Backspaces before so we brought on a power user from there. his project on Beacon was super successful: http://www.beaconreader.com/projects/extraordinary-everyday-...

And we're also moving into political cartoons and comics: http://beaconreader.com/ted-rall

At the end of the day, we're very keen to experiment and are open to lots of mediums and content types.

If you know people who might be interested, please SEND THEM MY WAY: Adrian@beaconreader.com

Happy to hop on the phone and chat with anyone!

unignorant• 12 years ago

Yeah, I'd second your thoughts about academic contributors.

I know a few HCI grad students who are interested in sharing their work in more informal kinds of venues (I'm one of them). Sure, conference papers are nice, but almost no one reads them. A lot of research in our field would appeal to a more general audience.

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

Yes! I think it could work awesome for academia - particularly in a format where the value transaction is really transparent and well documented.

You could even imagine a time where citing sources actually trickles money back to them to reflect their value to a new study.

If you know grad students, I'd love to chat with them: adrian@beaconreader.com

lukasm• 12 years ago

I've given a lot of though about current state of journalism and my conclusion was that the current model is wrong for two reasons 1. conflict of interests 2. lack of transparency

@1 There are two main sources of capital for journalists - government or companies that buy ads. The problem is when they can put pressure to not write of unjust acts that may conflict with their interests. The solution is to provide founding from large enough group of people when there is no dominant subgroup. Models has to be highly distributed to avoid bribing users[1]. There needs to be upper limit of funding e.g. 99$ or 10%[2] to dilute influence of a single user. Even better for a 5$ a month I can get credit which I can allocate.

@2 Log everything. Brutal transparency. That's the only way I can think of.

So you're going to make something people want, right? :) I want to be able to vote what is important for me. I want to post an issue and let other judge if it's worth investigating.

[1] I'm amazed how often pattern of distributed models occurs and works very well (Bitcoin, Git etc.). [2] That may have a similar effect as Twitter's 140 chars limit

SandersAK7• 12 years ago

Yep, you've kinda nailed it. We're moving towards that on Beacon. But right now our primary focus is on helping writers convert their existing readership into paying subscribers.

As the content offering as a whole becomes more robust, you'll start seeing more of the effects you're looking for.

It's really simple and old fashioned: You think certain information or perspectives are valuable, you pay for them.

We're just updating the underlying tech and user experience to modern times ;)

Beacon (YC W14) Offers A New Approach To Crowdfunding Journalism

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