The News by You aka Demotix
What is Demotix and why does this platform seem to go hand in hand with the revolutionary flow of journalistic transformation?
To begin with, Demotix is a crowd-sourced breaking news video and picture agency, which was founded by Turi Munthe and historian and Jonathan Tepper back in 2008, the year the startup movement first began to gain important ground and status. The breaking news startup first launched in January 2009 with Munthe at its head as CEO aiming at initially building a worldwide community of roughly 40.000 people, whose proposition was in turn to narrate or cover stories that nobody else could or even would tell. These editors, publishers, tech guys and correspondents uploaded more than 1 million news images, reported over 100.000 news stories from Iran to Oslo and sold their community’s work across the world, using the specifically designed platform of Demotix as their sole medium of communication.
In addition to this non negligible feat, the people of Demotix did not stop improving the structure and functionality of their platform, investing highly on speed and the participation of the average user. More specifically, Demotix calls any user to work as a potential news reporter or journalist, who after he/she has shot a news picture or video via an old cell-phone, an analog camera or a professional digital one is free to upload the material he has captured using the fast paced services of its platform. After the material is uploaded, the editorial team of the agency will decide whether it is newsworthy and licensed or not and will either end up buying and publishing the story or rejecting it. In this way the users/customers are able to use Demotix as their own personal portfolio, which is connected with Facebook and Twitter and is seen by hundreds of thousands of people and if the pictures are timely and proper, the sales team of the agency will then push them two their numerous clients and global resellers within seconds of the What is Demotix and why does this platform seem to go hand in hand with the revolutionary flow of journalistic transformation?
To begin with, Demotix is a crowd-sourced breaking news video and picture agency, which was founded by Turi Munthe and historian and Jonathan Tepper back in 2008, the year the startup movement first began to gain important ground and status. The breaking news startup first launched in January 2009 with Munthe at its head as CEO aiming at initially building a worldwide community of roughly 40.000 people, whose proposition was in turn to narrate or cover stories that nobody else could or even would tell. These editors, publishers, tech guys and correspondents uploaded more than 1 million news images, reported over 100.000 news stories from Iran to Oslo and sold their community’s work across the world, using the specifically designed platform of Demotix as their sole medium of communication.
In addition to this non negligible feat, the people of Demotix did not stop improving the structure and functionality of their platform, investing highly on speed and the participation of the average user. More specifically, Demotix calls any user to work as a potential news reporter or journalist, who after he/she has shot a news picture or video via an old cell-phone, an analog camera or a professional digital one is free to upload the material he has captured using the fast paced services of its platform. After the material is uploaded, the editorial team of the agency will decide whether it is newsworthy and licensed or not and will either end up buying and publishing the story or rejecting it. In this way the users/customers are able to use Demotix as their own personal portfolio, which is connected with Facebook and Twitter and is seen by hundreds of thousands of people and if the pictures are timely and proper, the sales team of the agency will then push them two their numerous clients and global resellers within seconds of theWhat is Demotix and why does this platform seem to go hand in hand with the revolutionary flow of journalistic transformation?
To begin with, Demotix is a crowd-sourced breaking news video and picture agency, which was founded by Turi Munthe and historian and Jonathan Tepper back in 2008, the year the startup movement first began to gain important ground and status. The breaking news startup first launched in January 2009 with Munthe at its head as CEO aiming at initially building a worldwide community of roughly 40.000 people, whose proposition was in turn to narrate or cover stories that nobody else could or even would tell. These editors, publishers, tech guys and correspondents uploaded more than 1 million news images, reported over 100.000 news stories from Iran to Oslo and sold their community’s work across the world, using the specifically designed platform of Demotix as their sole medium of communication.
In addition to this non negligible feat, the people of Demotix did not stop improving the structure and functionality of their platform, investing highly on speed and the participation of the average user. More specifically, Demotix calls any user to work as a potential news reporter or journalist, who after he/she has shot a news picture or video via an old cell-phone, an analog camera or a professional digital one is free to upload the material he has captured using the fast paced services of its platform. After the material is uploaded, the editorial team of the agency will decide whether it is newsworthy and licensed or not and will either end up buying and publishing the story or rejecting it. In this way the users/customers are able to use Demotix as their own personal portfolio, which is connected with Facebook and Twitter and is seen by hundreds of thousands of people and if the pictures are timely and proper, the sales team of the agency will then push them two their numerous clients and global resellers within seconds of theWhat is Demotix and why does this platform seem to go hand in hand with the revolutionary flow of journalistic transformation?
To begin with, Demotix is a crowd-sourced breaking news video and picture agency, which was founded by Turi Munthe and historian and Jonathan Tepper back in 2008, the year the startup movement first began to gain important ground and status. The breaking news startup first launched in January 2009 with Munthe at its head as CEO aiming at initially building a worldwide community of roughly 40.000 people, whose proposition was in turn to narrate or cover stories that nobody else could or even would tell. These editors, publishers, tech guys and correspondents uploaded more than 1 million news images, reported over 100.000 news stories from Iran to Oslo and sold their community’s work across the world, using the specifically designed platform of Demotix as their sole medium of communication.
In addition to this non negligible feat, the people of Demotix did not stop improving the structure and functionality of their platform, investing highly on speed and the participation of the average user. More specifically, Demotix calls any user to work as a potential news reporter or journalist, who after he/she has shot a news picture or video via an old cell-phone, an analog camera or a professional digital one is free to upload the material he has captured using the fast paced services of its platform. After the material is uploaded, the editorial team of the agency will decide whether it is newsworthy and licensed or not and will either end up buying and publishing the story or rejecting it. In this way the users/customers are able to use Demotix as their own personal portfolio, which is connected with Facebook and Twitter and is seen by hundreds of thousands of people and if the pictures are timely and proper, the sales team of the agency will then push them two their numerous clients and global resellers within seconds of themoment they are evaluated.
Moreover, as far as the sales are concerned Demotix sells the images and videos through three channels. Firstly, through selling directly to the company’s clients. Secondly, through Corbis, which distributes the best images to its 100,000 clients worldwide. On 2011, Demotix and Corbis signed a global distribution deal, which dictates that Corbix/Demotix takes 50% of the original sale, and 50% is given to the user/creator. Lastly, Demotix sells by partnering with local and regional resellers using their vital expertise and contacts.
The very structure of this platform along with the philosophy of the people representing Demotix and its financial strategy are the basic elements which allow for it to qualify as a revolutionary startup. To be more specific, the fact that Demotix’s slogan is “the News by You”, reflects lucidly the perception of the platform’s stuff regarding journalism and how it should be done, as they encourage and support the active participation of the average citizen in producing and reshaping the stories that end up being the everyday news. Demotix is the brain-child people who combined activism and journalism. They wanted to get away from the official narratives and big breaking stories that are usually all we hear from the most popular news agencies, such as Reuters and Associated Press, while creating an opportunity for news from every corner of the world to be posted and making it possible for ordinary people to create media and share it with the world.
As a result, Demotix is structured in a way that takes into consideration the necessity of our times for fast transactions and activities and emphasizes on the quality of the content of any given story and not the medium through which it was shot, as the quality of the second doesn’t make a story less interesting or unworthy of being told.
Creators:
Christina Charalampidou
Sokrates Sapounas
