Want your own news Web Site? Check out Printcasting

Never has starting your own online publication been so easy than with the invention of Printcasting, a 2008 Knight News Challenge winner.

The innovative tool, created Dan Pachecho of The Bakersfield Californian, essentially allows for a user to create a hyper local Web Site quite easily and pair it up with local blogs, advertisers, and other local, relevant news articles. The general idea behind it is to create a hyper-local, niche publications very easily and allow for its creators to send the publication out over e-mail or in paper.

Its Web site claims it will help you start a local news magazine in only five minutes and the idea generally seems to be true. While the service is still fairly young, it does create solid, yet simple Web sites for anyone that wants one.

It really makes it easy for someone that might not have a background in online journalism or in web development, to make a good Web Site very easy and efficiently. It seems to be a great service for citizen journalism, in that anyone could really start their own Web Site and start publishing content while having advertisement connected to it.

And I think their decision to only charge $10 per ad is really smart. It allows for small companies to advertise and maybe get their name out to new people, but also isn’t too expensive because it’s meant simply for that niche market.

While it still doesn’t seem to allow video or such, which goes against some of what Clay Shirley stated nor does it charge money for the individual sites as Rupert Murdoch suggests is the future, it’s a good service.

While one concern might be that someone with no journalism background can use this service and besmirch the good reputation of journalists, I think it’s a bit overstated as an issue. Yes I’m sure there could be an issue here and there, but for the most part I think it will just allow for people to provide good, local content.

Advertisement