The big problem for journalism is that 90 percent of all media is controlled by six corporations, distribution is controlled by technology companies, and there is no sustainable business model for the Mobile Age. Evrybit -- an all-in-one app for collaborative mobile reporting and storytelling -- solves this problem. Users have all the journalism tools they need in one place to produce mobile multimedia stories in real time. We’re a Swiss Army Knife for mobile reporting, a newsroom in the palm of your hand.
22. HOW ARE WE DIFFERENT?
EVRYBIT
FACE
BOOK
SCRIBBLE
LIVE
STORIFY TWITTER
Open
platform
Audio
production
Collaborative
storytelling
Embeddable
story stream
Accessible
marketplace
This revolution has nothing to do with Donald Trump.
This revolution has to do with how the world of Donald Trump gets covered.
Journalism. Ninety percent of all media is controlled by six corporations. This consolidation limits the number of stories that can be told and the type of stories that get told. The majority of stories that are being published and broadcast are biased. As a result, we are not getting the whole story. How did we get here?
The reality is trouble started more than a decade ago. Newspapers were forced to slash budgets and staff. Networks consolidated. Newsroom contracted. The industry has never recovered – nor has the quality and breadth of coverage.
The news business underestimated the internet. Now, we live in a world where the distribution of news is controlled by technology companies. This is an issue media companies never had to worry before, and it has created serious issues for journalism.
News organizations have more technology than ever before, but they still have not found a sustainable business model for the Mobile Age. And although technology companies love it when people engage with news content on their platforms and use their products, they are not big on sharing the wealth.
That's how we got here – a state of crisis in journalism. Most news organizations are not making money today, and the journalism industry is on track to make it worse. As mobile has reshaped how information is consumed, distributed and captured, the news business continues to fall further behind.
How do we solve this problem?
Local news isn't making money online.
Circulation/ad revenue shrinking.
Papers can't make up difference digitally.
News sites attract 3 percent of all Web traffic – 85 percent for national news site, 15 percent for local news
Local news gets .5 percent of overall Web traffic.
Average local newspaper gets 5 minutes per month per Web user.
Local news sites make less than $50k/yr
Leads to the question – so what can we do? How can we change it?
We need to rethink journalism.
There are 2 billion smartphone users. They create 5 billion pieces of content. But less than .01 percent of global smartphone users make money on media created with their smartphone.
Some of these smartphone users are professional journalists, but the majority of the smartphone users are news consumers -- the audience for media organizations. What if the audience could become part of the professional newsroom?
Technology gives anyone the power to be a reporter today. But the technology is fragmented, and most smartphone users lack the training to tell professional-quality stories. In other words, journalism does not have an easy way to create community-powered newsrooms.
Until now. Evrybit is an all-in-one app for collaborative mobile reporting and storytelling. Users have all the journalism tools they need in one place to produce mobile multimedia stories in real time. We’re a Swiss Army Knife for mobile reporting, a newsroom in the palm of your hand.
We're streamlining the process of production, distribution and monetization. We're taking what used to be eight steps (or more) and condensing it down to three. What would take minutes can now take seconds – and when you’re reporting in the field, every second counts. And we’re making the solution available to the masses. News happens everywhere – and now people not only have the hardware (hold up phone), but the only production tool they need in Evrybit to capture it. And we make that information comprehensible – presenting stories in coherent streams – not masses of information spread around the web. Because it’s not just about content, but context. The stories can be shared on social media and embedded on websites.
We have a freemium business model, with a free app available in the App Store. We also offer an enterprise option, with a web dashboard and increased storage. We’re currently building out an advertising rev share and the ability to directly pay content creators. We are already generating revenue.
We currently have 1,000 monthly active users. We are being used by independent and local news organizations and are working with journalism schools to make sure Evrybit is a tool in the toolbox of the next generation of reporters.
In addition to partnering with schools, we are targeting local independent online news publishers for sales. Because there are thousands of local news outlets around the United States, and many of them don’t have the resources to cover their communities in an effective way. They’re finding Evrybit meets that need.
And I know what journalists need because I have worked in digital media for over 16 years. I have been focused on mobile since 2012 and was a Knight Journalism Innovation Fellow at Stanford. In total, our founding team has over 40 years in media and technology.
Our revenue this year is $5000. We are on track to see a 15X increase in revenue in 2017.
We have some strong competition in the mobile journalism space, but our lean startup gives us the advantage of being agile and able to adapt. Our secret sauce is that our tool is optimized for journalists.
We have raised $300,000 from a combination of friends and family and angels. After releasing Version 2.0 in January 2016 and our enterprise dashboard in October 2016, we are looking to raise $200,000 right now to build out additional premium features and add sales and marketing staff.
Journalism is essential to democracy and freedom. The future of news production is mobile, and we are positioned to be the market leader for mobile reporting and storytelling to lead a journalism revolution. This revolution will not be televised. It will be Evrybit.
