I'm jaunting around New York this weekend which gives me the opportunity to try out the Citizen App. It's an app that facilitates the ability of everyday people to transmit news of accidents, fires, and, more to the talent of Citizen App, the more granular things such as 'guy passed out on sidewalk'.
People could already do this on Facebook or Twitter, as examples, but the Citizen App brings all the tools into a focused single stream of people who both care as individuals around such events, and who also have the impulse to act as informing broadcaster. It's like Next Door but much more fluid and designed to be 'ready at the hand'.
The app allows you to broadcast immediately from the scene of an event, as does Periscope or Facebook or Instagram Live generally, which seems to challenge the monetization process typically associated to the acquisition and distribution of exclusive breaking news type events.
If everyone is broadcasting what would otherwise have taken a for-profit news team or an independent, paid, stringer might have, then what is the value of a for-profit news team or the would-be 'night crawlers' who make a living selling footage to TV stations and the like?
In the video I am posting here you can hear that the Citizen App broadcaster is approached by someone who mildly castigates him for broadcasting without the intent to make money. The male voice apparently gives the broadcaster his contact card and reminds the broadcaster that he isn't making any money using Citizen App.
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