Mobile Journalists To Earn Money On Their Phones Covering Sports
Fan Media Network now allows mobile journalists, former college players and fans to earn money thru its innovative mobile payments marketplace in its world-class iPhone app.
The social news sports network of mobile phone video correspondents for the top 250 NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS teams is opening an entirely new market of mobile journalism for sports news coverage and continues to take citizen video journalism and social media to an entirely new dimension.
This ecosystem of fan-to-fan and brand-to-fan mobile payments aims to attract trained journalists, including freelance journalists, college broadcast and journalism students and journalists who want to reinvent themselves as mobile journalists as they have been laid off or struggling to get work due to a shift in sports media to bite size, fan-centric video that drives social media commentary.
“Mobile journalism is easy for trained journalists to access. All they need is an iPhone and iMovie video editing app or the Android equivalent. There is no heavy equipment to lug around. They can make and edit videos on their phones and on the go by capturing multiple clips of video footage, then some newswriting and put the clips together with a voiceover or natural sound or music for storytelling of news, games, events and moments. And get paid right on their phones”, said Kirk Berridge, company founder and CEO.
There are three ways mobile journalists, former college players and fans can earn money in the app by providing social news coverage of teams in their area on their phones from their point of view. The first way is a “Buy This Video” feature for newsrooms of local TV stations and newspaper web sites to buy bite size video coverage of news, games, events and moments for $50 from fans and $250 from official correspondents (trained journalists and former college players who Fan Media Network has promoted to official status) and the money goes into the mobile journalist’s/fan’s bank account. The second way is viewers/fans can give money to mobile journalists/fans in the app who they like or like their coverage, from their phone to the mobile journalist’s/fan’s phone and the money goes into their bank account. Think of this as a PBS-type media model for viewer-supported news programs. Mobile journalists/fans can use the money to help buy tickets, transportation, to upgrade their phones, services plans and to help cover other costs. The third way is brands can give influencers money for product placement in videos and or a fan testimonial on-camera on behalf of a brand and give them money from their phone to the fan’s phone and the money goes into the fan’s bank account. This is brand-to-fan mobile payments, a first in the world of advertising.
“Native video ads will be our featured video ad product, not interruptive pre-roll video ads like you see on YouTube and other web sites. Those are so uncreative and annoying and not effective anyway, just repurposed TV ads and not good for the user experience. In addition to building a network of mobile video journalists, we are building a stable of native video advertising makers. As a service to advertisers, our company will identify influencers for brands, then contact the fans and provide them the criteria and instructions to participate and qualify if they wish to accept, and if so and they fulfill the requirements, then they can earn money for producing native video ads. We now have an ecosystem where they can get paid right on their phones from advertisers who can use their corporate credit cards”, said Berridge.
For enabling and operating the mobile payments marketplace, the company shares the revenue 50/50 with the mobile journalists/fans.
The “Buy This Video” feature for local TV stations and newspaper web sites to feature the bite size video coverage on-air and online will include credits for Fan Media Network and the mobile journalist/fan. On average, it costs a local TV station $3,000 to produce a video/story or package as they call it. When considering their costs – reporter salary, TV truck, insurance, gas, expense reimbursements, expensive camera, camera person, other salaries, expensive video editing equipment, video editors (more salaries) and other costs, $50 videos from fans and $250 videos from trained journalists and former players in a “shared economy model” reduces costs, brings back local coverage, offers multiple points of view with the ability to easily get coverage of opposing teams, and helps develop a transactional revenue stream for mobile journalists/fans.
“Our niche is social news coverage for sports. This is going to help attract freelance journalists and other trained journalists to our network. And not just college broadcast and journalism students, but the many trained journalists who are getting laid off at local TV stations, magazines, newspapers, radio stations, and other media companies. And those who can’t get jobs. Local media outlets are providing less coverage and have less resources to cover teams. Beat writers, who typically break the stories in sports, and columnists used to go to team headquarters and practice everyday and on the road to cover the teams but that has been reduced or eliminated in some cities and sports. The local TV stations, newspapers and fans still want the coverage from a local point of view and a much lower cost of $50 a video/story from fans and $250 a video/story from trained journalists will be attractive,” added Berridge.
TV stations and newspapers in the top media markets across the country will promote Fan Media Network to their audience on-air and online to ask for sports video submissions, then the newsroom staff of the TV stations and newspapers can come into Fan Media Network’s app and pick the videos/stories they want to buy. This will drive marketing and revenue for mobile journalists/fans. Fan Media Network app and web site is set up with team channels and city feeds that display the most popular videos/stories as voted by the viewers/fans so it will be easy for newsrooms to find and buy videos. And as videos/stories multiply, they can use Fan Media Network’s search tool to find videos by keywords in headlines and most recent videos in the network.
Sports directors, sports producers and sports editors at local TV station affiliates and newspapers can build a profile in the app for their station or newspaper, then buy videos/stories they can purchase from the app with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover, then get the mp4 file of the video/story to feature on their channels and monetize and keep the revenue.
Trained journalists, former college players and fans can create a profile and activate a free mobile payments account to receive money.
Fan Media Network is a social news sports network of mobile video correspondents for the top 250 NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS teams (Patent Pending).
The web site and app have 250 team channels.
Trained journalists, former college players and fans make 45-second videos/stories on their phones covering their favorite teams in their area from their point of view as social news coverage and compete each season to earn official status and money. Videos feature a simple Yes/No vote and are shared from the app and web site into the News Feeds of Facebook and Twitter as social news coverage.
The mobile payments marketplace is available on the iPhone app to begin, then next will be available on the Fan Media Network web site.