22% in 4 days is a great start! - Crowd Funding Update

Sunday, 22 February 2015, 3:41 pm
Column: Scoop Operation Chrysalis

Dear Scoop Reader,

As I write this update it is 2pm on Sunday afternoon (22nd February) - almost exactly four days since we launched Scoop's first ever crowd funding campaign. We have just received a very generous anonymous 100th pledge of $1000 which has taken us to 22% of our target!

Scoop's Pledgeme campaign has an initial target of $30,000 to fund the transformation of Scoop.co.nz from a private media business into a not-for-profit news organisation held for the benefit of all NZers.

We are delighted with the way the campaign has been received as a start like this is just what a crowd funding campaign needs to succeed. Public interest tends to bring media interest and we have also had some nice media coverage in our first few days of campaigning.

Our average pledge size of $65 is solid and the t-shirt and notebook awards have had a fair few takers each.

Our social media campaign strategy also appears to be working well with 1300 views of the video I made with Pledgeme's Jackson Wood on Facebook and Youtube.

Tweets seem to work particularly well to keep the campaign in focus.

Thankyou to all those of you who have tweeted and facebooked about the campaign.

Media Coverage

On Friday the NBR's Campbell Gibson did a story about the campaign focused on a business aspect of the wider "Operation Chrysalis" exercise which is at the heart of refocusing of Scoop's business strategy - our new "Invisible Paywall". The invisible paywall idea was mentioned briefly in our FAQs on launch and as the campaign develops we will be talking more and more about this as well as contacting contributors and readers of Scoop about it.

The NBR article itself was initially behind a paywall but on Saturday it was made available to all as part of NBR's Weekend Review coverage.

See >> Best of the Week : Scoop plans 'invisible' paywall

“By creating a publicly owned or publicly accountable news vehicle it might be easier to achieve a sustainable level of subscriptions for Scoop in the long term," he says.

“We can tell who the large users are. The idea is to go to the people who are receiving value out of Scoop’s existence and charge them... At this stage we’re not looking to enforce [the paywall] but if a large user of Scoop objects we could ultimately block them.

“It’s not our intention to do that though, because it’s our belief there are a very large number of businesses that are good natured and willing to pay.”

In the long term finding a sustainable stable business model to support the core functions of Scoop - publishing releases, recordings of press conferences and maintaining a publicly accessible database of all our content - is what will provide us with the foundation to build a new kind of news company capable of supporting the best innovation in NZ news space.

The idea of an "Invisible Paywall" is likely to be a little controversial. But it is also the perfect way to enable Scoop to ask those organisations that routinely receive significant value from Scoop to contribute regularly to the provision of our core services, and thereby secure Scoop's sustainability.

This morning Radio New Zealand's Mediawatch show broadcast a fairly lengthy Colin Peacock interview with myself (Alastair Thompson) talking about the reasons for taking Scoop into public ownership.

I talked again about how Scoop hopes that by taking itself into public ownership it can build the kind of trusting relationship with its clients which will enable it to have a long term sustainable future as a platform for news industry innovation in New Zealand.

See >> Mediawatch for 22 February 2015

Blog Coverage

In our first four days of Pledge taking we have also had a few nice blog mentions :

Ian Apperly of StrathmorePark was the first out with the Scoop with this mention.

Jan Rivers From Public Good NZ had this to say about the campaign - News – make it ours! Crowd funding campaign.

On Friday The Standard has opened up a discussion about the crowd funding campaign. (I have offered to answer community members' questions.)

And today Pete George at YourNZ.org has had a gander at our campaign and has even transcribed our most excellent video. He appears to be a little skeptical but that may be because he isn't yet a big Scoop reader.

Thankyou again for your pledges and remember there is no limit on the number of times you are allowed to email friends, tweet, facebook or blog about our campaign :)

Kind Regards

Alastair Thompson
Scoop Editor & Publisher
Sunday, February 22, 2015

Background To Operation Chrysalis

As announced on December 19th Scoop is seeking to transform itself into a sustainable community focussed platform to enable New Zealanders to build a news service which ensures they can participate in society on an informed basis during a period of serious disruption to traditional news models.

As part of this process we have put out a call for expressions of interest in from individuals and organisations in assisting Scoop in the following ways:

• Providing internet hosting services;


• Bringing new "entrepreneurial" vision and energy to the Scoop project;


• Ethical Investment & Sponsorship; and,


• Making a purchase of from Scoop's communications product range (Newsagent, Infopages and Advertising).

We would be very keen to hear from anyone who is keen to assist us in any other way also and the Operation Chrysalis team can be reached via chrysalis@scoop.co.nz.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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