TweenTribune
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TweenTribune is a free,
not-for-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
online
newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
for children aged 8–15. It is updated daily with stories from the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
that are chosen based on relevancy to pre-adolescents. Kids can post comments to the stories which are moderated by their teachers, and teachers can use the site as a resource for meeting No Child Left Behind requirements for reading, writing and computer skills. The site first appeared on November 21, 2008. TweenTribune has been featured in articles in the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', '' Good Housekeeping'' and '' Family Circle'' magazine.


Financial model

TweenTribune.com is a
proof-of-concept Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has prac ...
model for new ways to fund
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...
online. The site employs a series of previously untried methods for building audience and revenue. These strategies grew audience and revenue in a matter of weeks, but it remains too soon to tell whether these strategies are the "silver bullet" that media companies seek to funding journalism in the
digital age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during t ...
. Quoted on Dec. 15, 2009, James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times said founder Alan Jacobson's "ebullient innovation opens a door for an underserved audience and provides the kind of incremental revenue that, strand by strand, eventually just might rope journalism back to a financial mooring."


Business model

To achieve sustainability, the site uses a group of strategies to reduce costs: 1. As of January 2010, all content is provided by outside sources. Stories come from the Associated Press, while comments are generated by children in the form of
user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
(UGC). 2. Editing of comments is provided by teachers, so editing is distributed among users as a means of reducing cost rather than centralizing editing with a paid staff. This is an example of distributive editing (DE). 3. Primary source code is provided by
Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...
, a free,
open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
code content management system. The site also depends upon other open-source applications, such as
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
,
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
and
MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...
. 4. All custom source code was written by Ebizon Netinfo of Noida, India which was more economical than developing the code in the US.


Revenue streams

Four diversified
revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...
streams form a previously untested business model for online news: 1. Local and national
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
is targeted demographically, based on the appeal of the content to a youth audience, and geographically, with specific local ads served up based on the
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
of the user. The user's location determines which ads they see. 2. Sponsorships by national advertisers are targeted demographically, based on the appeal of the adjacent news content. Sponsorships can also be targeted topically, on such subjects as Animals, Technology, Fashion, etc. 3. License fees are paid by local media companies for permission to post their local content as a means of promoting their local brands and creating the next generation of news consumers. In addition, local media companies can sell advertising which is targeted geographically. Newspapers using this model include The Valdosta Daily Times, The Traverse City Record-Eagle and the Brainerd Dispatch. Other newspapers using TweenTribune include the Bakersfield Californian,
The Virginian-Pilot ''The Virginian-Pilot'' is the daily newspaper for Norfolk, Virginia. Commonly known as ''The Pilot'', it is Virginia's largest daily. It serves the five cities of South Hampton Roads as well as several smaller towns across southeast Virginia ...
and the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, VA. 4."
Freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...
" model, in which basic features are provided to teachers and students at no cost, with specific value-added features that are provided at an additional, nominal cost.


History

Alan Jacobson,Jacobson's bio on BrassTacksDesign.com
/ref> president o
BrassTacksDesign
created TweenTribune as a way of helping his 10-year-old daughter with her homework. Launched on Nov 21, 2008, the site had little traffic in its first year. In October 2009 page views began to jump dramatically after a new promotional campaign was launched that marketed the site directly to teachers — a strategy that had not been tried before. As of May 2010, the site gets 3.4 million page views per month, and 26,000 teachers are registered. TweenTribune is used in 50,000 classrooms in the U.S., Australia, Canada and Japan.


References


External links

{{official website, http://tweentribune.com American news websites