Rawporter: Nitty Gritty Raw Citizen Journalism

Rawporter, New York startup, North Carolina startup, citizen journalism startup,startup,everywhereelse.co

Rawporter co-founder Kevin Davis pitches at everywhereelse.co 2013 (photo: Allie Fox for NMI)

By: Andrea LeTard, University of Memphis Entrepreneurial Journalism Student

To startup co-founders Rob Gaige and Kevin Davis, news is news, and it’s spreading fast with their website, rawporter.com.

Rawporter.com helps people earn money for the photos and videos they normally post on Facebook and Twitter,” said Gaige. “Think about when you see breaking news or you see a celebrity, your normal instinct is to take a photo or video, and you tweet it out. With Rawporter, you can make money off these posts.”

Many media outlets, ad agencies, and brands want to use the photos and videos people post online. The problem is they can’t always find good, relevant photos and videos, and when they do, they can’t always trust them. Once they finally find one they actually want, they have to negotiate and determine what it is worth.

“With Rawporter, you can actually take a photo or video, post it to our site, and we still tweet it or put it on the Facebook page, but it’s got a watermark and it’s got a price tag,” said Gaige.

Every big idea has a story, and Rawporter came about when Gaige and Davis were at the right place at the right time. Back when both of them were working in corporate America two years ago, they were at a local bar’s happy hour talking about their future careers when a car ran into the restaurant next to them. According to Gaige, it was a huge scene, with the street closed down and people running out to take pictures and videos – something they assumed would naturally be seen on the news that night. Wrong. The story didn’t even make the local evening news.

Gaige said, “By the time the news media got there, the scene had already been cleared and there was no story, but if they would’ve had our footage they could’ve had something to lead off the newscast.”

Rawporter turns regular people into reporters. Media outlets send push notifications via the Rawporter app if they know a story is breaking across town. If they can’t get there fast enough, they can go to Rawporter and see how many people are in that area, and those people will be paid for the job.

“So instead of media outlets patrolling twitter or hoping someone got a photo, they can now go online and find what they need immediately,” said Gaige.

With several thousand users in over 50 countries, Rawporter’s base is now strong enough for them to approach media outlets and outsource their assignments.

For more information on Rawporter, visit http://rawporter.com.

CES 2013: Nibletz Will Be Rawportering From CES 2013 And Eureka Park

rawporter, Charlotte startup, NC startup, CES 2013Imagine if you could make money by simply taking video of something newsworthy with your smartphone. This new form of reporting is called citizen journalism and startups like Charlotte NC’s Rawporter are at the forefront of this wave of crowdsourcing the news.

Rawporter was founded in 2011 by Kevin Davis and Rob Gaige two marketing executives who left their cush office jobs to to dig into the trenches of startup life and make everyone, potentially, a Rawporter.

The idea came to Davis and Gaige after they were eating at one of their favorite local Uptown Charlotte restaurants. While they were dining there was a rather big car accident right in front of the restaurant. Naturally smartphones were up in the air taking video and pictures at the scene. What Davis and Gaige noticed was that the official news stations didn’t arrive until the accident had cleared.

They, along with several others, sent their homemade videos into the news stations but none of them actually aired. Sure there some of the national cable stations ask people to send in their videos but localized rawportering hadn’t broken through.

Now Rawporter has become a platform that allows bloggers, journalists and even tv stations to crowdsource news footage and has a mechanism for citizen journalists to get paid for their videos. For small one to three man blogs, Rawporter is a great way to get video coverage of events they can’t otherwise attend or report on.

We’ll be sharing a lot of our CES video coverage on Rawporter for free. Other blogs are welcome to use the video coverage that we supply via Rawporter, all we ask is that you credit nibletz.com with a source link.

While we’re giving our videos away, if we wanted to we would be able to sell them for whatever we would like.

On the flipside if we needed video from CES or any other event we could put out a call for an assignment, let the community know how much we were willing to pay and voila we would have our video like we were there.

Check out our Rawporter CES coverage once CES officially gets rolling. We will link to it here on nibletz.com on the right side bar.

Rawporter is also the official on-site video sponsor for the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, for tickets and info click here

 

Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Raises $300,000 Seed Round With Two Inaugural Investments

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We are very excited to report that are good friends, and longtime supporters of Nibletz and our previous ventures, have raised a $300,000 seed round.

Rawporter is a socially driven market place where citizen journalists can post their photos and videos of interesting news events. Rawporter has an e-commerce platform built in where users can sell their pics and videos to news sites, bloggers and even tv stations.

The idea was born when co-founders Kevin Davis and Rob Gaige were eating dinner in Uptown Charlotte. They saw a pretty intense auto accident outside of the restaurant. What they noticed was that all of the people passing by ( including themselves) had snapped some pictures and videos. However by the time the news crews arrived the accident had all but cleared.

Both Davis and Gaige thought that there had to be a way, outside of emailing the photos and videos unsolicited to a news director, to get eyewitness news to the media.

That’s the core to Rawporter now they’ve added social features and more.

Rawporter was able to attract funding from two new funds in their home state of North Carolina. This the first investment by the newly formed IMAF (Inception Micro Angel Fund) Cape Fear and the N.C. Fund of Funds.

Gofman Holdings also participated in the round.

“We formed IMAF Cape Fear to invest in emerging technology businesses. Rawporter is an exciting way for us to take advantage of the photo and video-sharing momentum. Additionally, our expertise in Mobile and eCommerce will better prepare Rawporter for success,” said Dallas Romanowski, Fund Director at IMAF Cape Fear.

As mentioned above, Rawporter is also the first investment by the N.C. Fund of Funds program, a component of the N.C. Small Business Credit Initiative, which was created through federal funding under the Small Business Jobs Act.

“We will be investing in early stage North Carolina companies, like Rawporter, with the potential for exceptional job growth. Our financial support will lead to exciting employment opportunities in the ever-growing North Carolina technology sector,” said Timothy Janke, Director of Private Equity Initiatives for North Carolina’s Small Business & Technology Development Center.

“Although we’re pleased with the progress to date, this funding provides the opportunity to expand faster and introduce functionality our community’s been clamoring for,” said Rawporter Co-founder Kevin Davis.

Linkage:

More coverage of our friends at Rawporter

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else here’s more startup news from “everywhere else”

Rawporter is going to be here, are you?

We Caught Up With Charlotte Startup Rawporter At The DNC 2012

While we were at the DNC 2012 we got the opportunity to crash at the Rawporter crib in Uptown Charlotte. Rawporter co-founder Kevin Davis, recently relocated to New York to help grow the citizen journalism startup. Rob Gaige, the other Rawporter co-founder remains in Charlotte to continue their grassroots efforts in their hometown.

For those of you who aren’t aware, or for those of you who hear the name Rawporter on our videos, Rawporter is a social e-commerece platform for citizen journalism.

On Tuesday evening in the thick of an enormous rain storm, and just before the evening session at the DNC where First Lady Michelle Obama brought the house down, I actually got to join Gaige and Davis for a meal at the Dandelion Market in Uptown Charlotte (that’s their downtown), which is the restaurant where Rawporter was born. It was while eating at Dandelion that Gaige and Davis witnessed a horrific car accident. Like any event like this in 2011, people quickly emerged from every establishment on the block with their smartphones, and immediately started shooting pictures and videos.

Davis and Gaige both noticed that it wasn’t until after the emergency personnel had left and the wreckage was almost cleared that the news trucks began to arrive. When the Rawporter duo got back home and watched the news, sure enough there were no pictures or videos of the actual wreckage.

Sure national cable networks like CNN and Fox News, encourage their viewers to send in videos, but there had to be a way for citizen journalists, and the average people to get their videos to news outlets. In effect there needed to be a crowdsourced video news platform. So Rawporter was born.  Davis and Gaige also decided to add another spin and make an e-commerce platform for the buying and selling of these videos and photos.

On the e-commerce side it was quickly discovered that Rawporter was a great way for bloggers with a small staff, or even newspapers and other media outlets with bare bones staff and bare bones budgets, to utilize the platform for great content.

Now news editors and the like can sift through and buy uploaded files, but what’s even better is they can commission a Rawporter user to actually do the work they need. For instance, if there is a convention or conference that the news outlet can’t get to, they can post an “assignment” with what they are willing to pay and the Rawporter community can bid for the assignment.  Rawporter even facilitates the transaction.

Naturally with the Democratic National Convention in their back yard, it was an excellent venue to show off their product.

The Rawporter team also pitched at DEMO this past spring and Chicago TechWeek back in July.

Check out our video interview below:

Linkage:

Check out Rawporter here

Here’s more of our DNC 2012 coverage

Nibletz is on a sneaker-strapped nationwide startup roadtrip and needs your support

Techweek Startup City: LAUNCH contestants

 

 

Tomorrow is the third consecutive year of Techweek’s LAUNCH event.

On Monday, June 25, Startup City will highlight the startup ecosystem’s creativity and variety, giving attendees an exciting sneak peak of the newest ideas entering the market.

Located in the exhibit hall, this space provides an area for startups and aspiring entrepreneurs from Techweek LAUNCH to demo their products and network with potential investors and customers. Exhibitors can also receive feedback from technology trendsetters, media representatives, digital creatives and other exciting industries that attend Techweek. Startups are an important part of the world economy and an integral element of our conference.

I have compiled all of the startups and their websites that I could.  I was unable to locate MouseHouse and/or Care Content.  Take a look over the different contestants and let us know who you feel has a chance at winning top prize here at Techweek.

ArborVita

Benecure

Care Content

Collidescope

Couture Circle

Driveway Software

Furnishly

gDine

Georama

Gigity.TV

jobblocks

KLUTCHclub

linechop

Matador

MobileX Labs

MouseHouse

mTriage

NextCrew Corporation

PrepHero

PreScouter

PrettyQuick

Rawporter

RecBob

Regroup Therapy

RentStuff.com

SafeSnips

SimpleRelevance

Say’n’Ride

Tappestry

TrakBill

Venue Cricket

VIPorbit Software

WaitFor.me

Wink

Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Strikes Exclusive Deal For Libyan Coverage

Citizen Journalism startup Rawporter has reported some very exciting news themselves. The Charlotte based startup has announced that they’ve teamed up with freedom fighter and journalist Matthew VanDyke, who will provide 1st person perspective of the newly liberated Libya, for Rawporter users around the world to use for footage.

“Weʼre excited to participate in this incredibly unique opportunity, Matt is genuinely trying to make a
difference and weʼre extremely proud to assist in his efforts to bring more visibility to Libya while it
undergoes a massive transition,” said Kevin Davis, co-founder. “Weʼve been building a powerful
platform to help people share their stories and this is a great example of our vision being put into
practice.”

Rawporter will have a page (http://rawporter.com/pm/matthewvandyke) dedicated to Mr. VanDykeʼs videos and photos that anyone can view or purchase. Any proceeds from video and photo sales will be donated to a fund for the family of a journalist killed while reporting in a conflict zone. Additionally, Rawporter will be subsidizing a portion of Mr. VanDykeʼs expenses so that he can focus on his mission and worry less about logistics. Mr. VanDyke will attempt to make himself available to respond to assignments if possible but wants to reinforce that there will be significant limitations on his time.

“Citizen journalism played a key role in the Libyan civil war. The videos captured by Libyans in the early days of the revolution were broadcast through the internet and helped mobilize international support for the war. I believe that Rawporter is an innovative company that will facilitate the dissemination of Arab Spring footage from Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere. Their technology will also assist in the broadcast of revolutionary footage from beyond the Arab world that is essential to attracting the attention of the international community to support struggles for freedom worldwide. My partnership with Rawporter is another opportunity for me to contribute to the cause of freedom, as well as another cause I care deeply about – journalism and freedom of the press. I hope that my participation can help expand Rawporterʼs market and give another way for the voices of the oppressed to be heard,” said Matt VanDyke.

Rawporter offers a unique app for both iOS and Android phones that allows users to participate in the action and supply “citizen journalistic” videos and photos for news outlets, media sites, blogs and more to use across the Rawporter network.

Adding this partnership with VanDyke solidifies Rawporter’s commitment to full fledged journalism in addition to their innovative platform.

Linkage:

For more information visit rawporter.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “Everywhere Else” check out these stories from “everywhere else”

We’re on a sneaker strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, check out this link here or watch the video.

Nibletz Road Trip To Continue This Week

Thanks for checking out Nibletz.com whether you’re new to the site or have us on RSS and come every time there is a new story, thank you thank you thank you.

The feedback to the site and our mission to be the voice of startups “everywhere else” has been met with great enthusiasm from startups we’ve covered, and startups that we haven’t covered to angels, VC’s, incubators, tech enthusiasts, and startup enthusiasts alike.

We’ve actually only had two pieces of bad feedback, both along the lines of “Silicon Valley” is where all the startups are.   We actually found out by talking with Jared Konczal Senior Analyst at the Kauffman foundation that, that can’t be further from the truth. There are over 300,000 startup stage companies across the country and only a fraction of them are in the valley.

We love the valley and what it’s done for technology. Our other site wouldn’t be where it is without the valley, but our mission is “everywhere else”.In covering that message we found very early on that the best way to do that is to get in the trenches with all the other startups. We’re a startup ourselves and that kind of coverage has meant sleeping in the car (and a whole lot of Motel 6’s and Red Roof Inns), eating a lot of Ramen and Pop Tarts, going to every mixer with free hor dourves and camping out while covering incubators and co-working spaces so we can really get some work done.

We’re headed back out by car at first, but we’ve been given the opportunity to use a friends 37′ bus as a mobile newsroom, promotional vehicle for our mission and the startups everywhere else, and as a place to sleep and take a shower. Of course that costs money that’s why we have this indiegogo page set up. Please check it out and help if you can.

 

Over the next three weeks we’re going to be in New Orleans, Chattanooga (again), New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Boston and Connecticut. We’ll be gradually moving west towards Chicago, St.Louis, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Omaha, Wisconsin, and many more. We are going to be on the road from next week through September of 2013 taking a 5 day break every 3 or 4 weeks to be with our families and rest.

We’re doing this because it’s an explosive time for growth for startups and we’ve made so many great friends along the way. We’ve seen so many great areas and we can’t wait to see more.

So wish us luck and please check out our indiegogo page. Also if you want us to stop in your town please drop us an email at startup@nibletz.com let us know your startup, incubator, co-working space or event and we’ll see if it works in our calendar.

The nationwide startup community everywhere else is great and it’s only getting greater!  Here’s another link to the indiegogo page

Thanks,

Kyle, Cameron and Brent

Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Talks About What DEMO Was Like

Our good friends Kevin and Rob at Rawporter were among the startups that presented at DEMO last week in Santa Clara. We reached out to many of the startups that were coming from “Everywhere Else” to DEMO to talk to them about their experience and what it is they were doing.

Rawporter is an app and service (Service as an app) that allows everyday people with smartphones to take pictures and videos, upload them to the rawporter site and then get paid for providing “man on the street” coverage to news outlets across the country, and the world. It’s also a great service for bloggers to source video that they might not otherwise be able to cover.

“Now anyone who needs custom video and photo content can request it from our users who might already be in the right place at the right time. In exchange for responding to assignments, our Rawporters get the compensation and credit they deserve simply for putting their smartphone to work.” Kevin Davis, co-founder of Rawporter told Nibletz.com

So we wanted to find out why, with all the startup competitions across the country, did Rawporter choose DEMO?

“We knew DEMO was a tremendous platform to launch a new business, but since we’re still bootstrapping, we weren’t sure if we could afford the exhibition fee. Luckily, they offered us a scholarship and that made it a very easy decision. The DEMO team was incredibly helpful and we can’t thank them enough for the experience and exposure that Rawporter received at the event.”

More after the break
Read More…

Rawporter Roadshow: FOSE 2012: Motorola Mobility Shows Off 1GB Indoor Fiber Networking

We’ve all heard of FIOS right, and we know the value and speed of a fiber optic network? Well on our Rawporter Roadtrip we got to spend some time with Motorola Mobility to talk about something other than Android phones. That something is a blazing fast in home or in office networking product that uses fiber optic instead of copper ethernet.

The gigabit fiber optic network gives you in home or office speeds from the basement through the house of up to 1gb per second, now that’s amazingly fast.

We actually didn’t know that this product was in the Motorola Mobility family we thought that Mobility encompassed Android phones and set top boxes.

Admittedly, Motorola Mobility is only rolling this product out at a government and enterprise level currently but since when does Google not cater to the consumer. One of two things will happen with this product after the Google merger it will either be sold off or we’ll start seeing it in homes as well.