Is Newsvine the future of news?

Most traditional news papers and online news websites have a number of writers who contribute to the paper. There is however, a new way of creating online news papers — Letting the readers to the writing. As chaotic it may sound, it works fairly well overall. Sites such as Digg use the same style of editorial control, where users create and moderate stories.

The thing that separates Newsvine from other sites such as Digg, is that it is a replacement for a regular news paper, not just aimed for a niche market. Newsvine is currently in beta, and to use it one has to get an invite. Once you are in, you can choose to go about things in a number of ways.

Perhaps you do not want to contribute and just read the paper? Fine, don’t do that. There is lots of up-to-date content available and just pick your topic from the menu, or just read the top news directly. If you like to contribute, but don’t have any writing skills or are just lazy, there is a concept called seeding. This is a function where users can, when they visit articles on the internet, annotate them and send them to Newsvine. They will pop up next to the regular articles and is a great contribution.

If you do want to contribute to Newsvine, you get your own column as well as the revenues for the adverts on your column! Now, how is that for an inspiration! Great content leads to many reads which leads to money in your pocket.

The real question is now whether this form of editorial control is better than the classic one? If you ask me, it really is. The ability to let everyone contribute leads to a more open society and gives a whole new meaning to free speech.