I am a sucker for new things that are based on a great idea. I believe that Knewsroom has the potential to have a bit of an impact on the way news is imparted on the internet. In its infancy though, the balance of material linked to is fairly and squarely not original content, which is a real shame.
But I jump ahead.
What is this Kluster thing that is running Knewsroom?
Well, the best way of learning what they are is by looking at their history page. This is the cutting edge up so close and in stop motion photography so you can see the skin peeling apart and the blood vessels rupturing. All sounds very dramatic, but this could be the start of something BIG (as they say in the classics).
Flick over then to the Theater page and watch the movies for a bit of fun.
So these guys have been to TED and have a cool web presence and utterly rock their world. I like them and their attitude,and hope that their journey has a better ending than Pippa Bacca’s who also set out to change the world with grand ideals.
Back to the Knewsroom; which appears to have spawned while things are quiet in the design part of the site. Lots of pent up creative people with nothing to do is so much potential energy going to waste, and so a community driven “news you want to read about” is evolving.
Now it is pretty clear that the original idea will need some work, as I mentioned above the links to pre-written stories on other news sites seems to me, to defeat the entire process. Why read tomorrow about something that you could have read today. There needs to be an influx of clever people and writers (like the people I like to follow on Twitter) bunging their stuff up there act as the catalyst for others to also join in (I hope my Twitter friends are reading this).
Also as the whole thing is in its infancy a group of 3 or more people should be able to influence what is on the front page just by block investment. This probably already happens, so investing where others are, rather than what you would like, is the smart move….and totally against the whole notion of group choice.
For my marketing friends I see this as also an opportunity to demonstrate authority should you fit into one of the wide (but in reality narrow if you are focussed entirely on internet marketing) subject headers. Get a following and you will be raking in the attention (and supposedly the bucks).
Even though there is potential to make money on this site, I really think that is a minor part of the whole thing. I get off on being in a crowd (or leading a crowd) that is working on something exciting.
Maybe this will be something awesome, stupendous, game-changing….or maybe it was just yesterday’s news.
UPDATE: Knewsroom now pays $150 for each original story published!