Author: Michael Higdon | 03.11.2009

I finally have a chance to sit down and write about the Future of Journalism Think Tank at the Reynolds School of Journalism‘s J Week. To make it easier to digest and easier to write, I’m breaking it up into six parts, that way if you don’t care about certain sections you can skip them. If you want the whole story, you can read it all.

To make it all easier, here’s a table of contents for the six parts:

1. The Process
2. Discoveries and highlights
   
3. Group 1 prototype
   
4. Group 2 prototype
5. Group 3 prototype
6. Critique & launching point

GROUP 2 PROTOTYPE

Group 2 consisted of Rob Curley, Michael Maness, Anthony Moor, Jerry Ceppos, Alan Mutter, Thomas Brew and Kris Woyzbun (see Part 2 for full list of people and links to their information).

Remember, these prototypes are rough concepts of what we wish news could do in a more or less perfect world.

The concept

This group wanted to develop a point system on a news website. For every activity users do, they receive points. People receive more or less points depending on their level of engagement. For example, commenting on a story nets maybe 2 points, but writing your own story is worth 10.

Those points can later be used to redeem coupons, win things or even participate in editorial boards or meet with the mayor or other influential people.

Also, the site is based on a “My Minutes” concept. Meaning, people can set up their profiles for the website to provide the amount of news they want in the amount of time they want per day or per week (this can be changed at any time).

The site basically becomes a customized delivery system with an incentive to participate in democracy.

Wild ideas

• Rob Curley said he can make this concept for Las Vegas Sun in six weeks and he might actually do it