Wellington
Hands up those people who know how the world of newspapers and magazines and journalism andwriting's going to play out in the internet world!
Lots of information's free, newspapers no longer have the same quantity of advertising revenue tosubsidise their subscription prices, writers don't have easy ways to tout theirmissives.
Enter "All about the Story" , a year old 'marketplace'for writers and journalists to offer their stories and for editors to pick a piece that suits theirpublication. The story fee is determined by the writer, and AATS clips a 20% transaction fee andpays it into a nominated account once the publisher has paid.
AATS grew out of an idea by Julie Starr , ajournalist and editor who returned to New Zealand in 2007 from more than 10 travelling, includingnewspaper work in Britain. One of her gigs was at the Daily Telegraph five years ago (a lifetime ininternet years), where along with then-Editor Will Lewis, Starr was heavily involved in a project tointegrate the newsroom into the online world.
"That was a very future-looking experience, particularly around how people use and share onlineinformation," she says. "It showed how the economics of an online publication is completelydifferent to print. It was obvious though that the new media was going to need aninfrastructure."
Arriving back in New Zealand, and experiencing frustration at attempting to sell aKashmir-oriented travel story, Starr attended the Webstock event in Wellington in early 2009. Thisis a web-design, internet exploration 'do' for geeks and others interested in the whole onlineworld.
There she got talking with Lance Wiggs and Joshua Vial. They kicked around her idea of creatingan online marketplace for writers and editors, and along with Michael Koziarski and NatalieFerguson, AATS was launched in November 2009.
At the moment the site doesn't have any fulltime employees, though Starr's constantly "crankingup the time I have to spend on it," servicing what is now hundreds of writers (and cartoonists andillustrators) and publishers - matching sellers with buyers. The team's happy with its growth shesays.
The concept has taken time to build awareness among potential users, and for people to get usedto doing business this way. At the same time, the rapidly changing media environment means AATS isalso having to constantly change the way it does business.
From editors' points of view it saves them having to have a (often long-winded) conversation witha writer; they simply find a story they like, that fits, buy it, download it and put it in thepublication.
Particularly as an editor approaches a deadline, needing something to fill a gap, AATS isperfect. Editors can search by category, author, topic and key words to find the right article; aswell as being able to commission a story via the site.
A writer only is charged if a story is bought - contributors don't have to pay to use the site assuch, only needing to spend a small amount of time uploading their words to AATS.
"We've started in New Zealand to prove the model," Starr says, "and we'll be expanding overseasas we go."
"If you wanted to characterise our first year, you'd say we've learned a lot and built ourpresence. We have the foundation to move forward. We have all kinds of people using it, and haveclear ideas of how to build it further and go ahead."
Starr says there are similar, but different overseas models to AATS. Some tend to be morespeciaslist, providing say videos only, while others, say India, are country specific.
There are also sites that ask contributors to write tight, keyword-rich stories for websites –usually in volume. However, in her opinion, most of these sites only pay small amounts, and "someare quite disappointing for writers, especially those wanting to retain journalistic integrity."
While getting AATS up and running, Starr spent a couple of years as editor in residence at theWaikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), then created an online version of the National Diplome inJournalism for distance learners which allows students to study the craft at home. As well asrunning AATS on a day to day basis, Starr also consults on newsroom design and workflows, as well asother related projects
AATS's future direction, while necessarily somewhat secret, is to build greater use of the site,and add more functionality to its nicely simple (sticK's opinion) layout.
"We've got a development list that's miles long, most around serving our customers first andthings the site needs to be able to grow," Starr says. "That's one of the benefits of working withthis bunch of guys. Their perspective is invaluable, they ask direct, probing questions. Wechallenge one another, figure out what the priorities are. Collectively, we do it better,together."
She says AATS has a number of possible future business models. One version may be as a 'whitelabel', with other businesses in other countries perhaps able to put their own name on the wholeAATS 'engine'. Alternatively, AATS could become a type of global mini-Bloomberg.
"We're looking at a few options, acquiring information on what and which we should do. It's fullsteam ahead."
Starr says one innovation she's pleased that AATS is able to offer is a scholarship to attendthis year's Webstock in Wellington. Considering that 'proper' tickets cost more than $1000, theopportunity to write about and mingle with those at the cutting edge of internet developments issomething that's attracting considerable attention from the site's wrangle of writers.
"This is fun," she says. "Having a site like this enables us to do great things."