Mike Davidson of Newsvine on Community News

News organizations tend to delivering information in a top down fashion. Someone on the editorial teams makes the executive decision about the days news, the news gets produced, and is ultimately sent out into the world. The Internet has quietly chipped away at this idea for over a decade, with blogging bringing incrementally faster change in the process. Recently a few companies are emerging with the intent to rethink the way news becomes news. Instead of a top down approach, companies are getting some or all of the news direct from the readers, allowing the readers to generate or submit stories and then filter the “best stuff” to the top through various voting mechanisms. Newsvine is one of the companies engaged in this new news, publishing reader submitted stories side-by-side with Associated Press stories from the wire. This gives reasonably equal footing to both pro journalists and amatuer newshounds who actively seek out stories a daily basis. Even if you aren’t seeking new stories, you can comment on anything submitted. If you’re creating original material, you might even get paid for your writing, via an advertising revenue split with Newsvine. Chris recently spoke with Mike Davidson, CEO of Newsvine, about how Newsvine is changing the way people consume news, how active participation in a community builds loyalty, and about the slightly controversial move by Jason Calacanis of AOL in hand-picking contributors from community sites like Newsvine to come work for him on Netscape.com.

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