After
gathering 2.566 backers and US$ 140.201 in funding resources, Matter has gained
the attention of the journalistic industry since the last months of 2012. The
project was presented at the beginning of the year in KickStarter – an online
funding platform for creative projects. Its initial goal – US$ 50.000 – was
achieved in only two days, which has proved the potential audience´s enthusiasm
with the project. “We´ve reached our target far faster than we ever imagined
possible”, said the two creators, Jim Giles and Bobbie Johnson, in the funding
platform.
The project is
simple. The idea brings us back to the original way of doing real journalism:
an “independent, global and in-depth reporting”, based in the concept that web
journalism doesn´t need to have superficial, cheap, fast and low-quality content
in order to be profitable. Its real differential is a new format and a new
business model.
On February
22th, the two experienced journalists presented in KickStarter the promise to
deliver to customers every week a story about big issues in technology and
science. “That means no cheap reviews, no snarky opinion pieces, no top ten
lists”, explained them in the launching day. The idea of independent and
investigative journalism comes stronger when they promise no advertising in the
material and the idea of innovation is emphasized in the format – “a beautiful
designed experience” received in any device, such as tablets and smartphones.
With no adds,
the business model is simple: it costs US$ 0,99 per story. The user enters in
the Matter´s website and buys the article he/she wants. The website also
stimulates the users to become a member, paying a monthly tax of also US$ 0,99,
which enables them to get some benefits such as story extras, kindle delivery
and invitation to online question and answer sessions with the authors and
editors of the story of they are interested in.
Besides
getting funding to start the project, being succeeded in the KickStarter
platform also caught the attention of the media, which has enabled the project
to become well known.
On November,
they launched their first story. On December, the second. And they are doing
that step by step: depending on the market response, they will deliver the
promised every week story.
The two
journalists didn’t spend a coin to launch the project – it was all funded by potential
readers. They have just had the effort of developing some stories in advance.
When they got the money, they launched a simple website and released the
stories. It sounds simple (and simplicity can sometimes mean success!), but it
touches many new concepts about journalism. It seems until now that news
consumers like the independence idea (they have always liked it), the free
initiative and the good, deep and high quality journalism. And, they are
willing to pay a small amount of money for that, even if it is online.
In the middle
of the current media revolution, those concepts – which can sound like basic -
are being really questioned. Is the audience willing to pay for information
online? Well, now we have to keep following the steps of these two
entrepreneurs in order to confirm if it is a really new paradigm for the news in
the web business.
This text was an assignment for the Technology Immersion Course
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