Some pretty big developments at Vancouver-based NowPublic, the “citizen journalism” or “participatory media” site, or whatever your preferred term is. One of them is that PaidContent says the company, whose site just underwent a redesign and relaunch, has signed a partnership arrangement with the Associated Press newswire. The two are going to collaborate on news coverage, although there aren’t really a whole lot of details — either in the PaidContent item or in the news release from the wire service.
AP vice-president Jim Kennedy says AP “has a long tradition of pursuing citizen contributions in breaking news events worldwide” and “this relationship will make that connection even stronger and result in more news and images from people who are in the right place at the right time.” Interestingly enough, NowPublic’s “Actual News Guy” Mark Schneider says in a comment on the PaidContent story that the company is looking for a correspondent in Second Life.
The other development came yesterday, and it is that MSNBC founder and former editor-in-chief Merrill Brown has joined NowPublic as chairman of the board. The release says that he “was on the front lines at MSNBC when the Internet transitioned into the number one place to consume news and content,” and that he will “help us to continue building the next-generation wire service.â€
Big moves for NowPublic — it will be interesting to see how it develops.