Billy Penn

Jim Brady invests $500,000 of his own cash into mobile news start-up. Here's another feature on him.

“I refuse to believe, after 200-some-odd years,” Brady says, “that there’s no longer a model for local journalism.”
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/articles/jim-brady-profile-billy-pulpit/#9UIstYoGumrBEitp.99

Maybe Jim has the answer.

Plus, there are 30 billion reasons to find one. http://themediaonline.co.za/2014/07/the-30-billion-advertising-opportunity-the-growth-in-mobile/

I still go back to the quote above: “I refuse to believe, after 200-some-odd years,” Brady says, “that there’s no longer a model for local journalism.”

 

If he is still defending Paton, it's very unlikely he has any answer at all. Kiss that $500K goodbye, I'm thinking.

 

Just to be clear, the other person wasn't Paton. But he was upper-echelon management.

 

Same diff, probably.

Still, $500K gone.

 

"A lot of our visitors last week didn’t necessarily come with story ideas, and that’s what we expected. Mostly, people just wanted to meet us in person and really get a sense of what we’re trying to do. We’re a mobile platform for a better Philly. Simply put, we’re giving readers the next step. We’ll deliver headlines, dive deeper on some stories and then provide a way to act. Maybe it’s a link to a petition, maybe it’s an event or community discussion."

http://billypenn.com/2014/09/26/thanks-for-coming-to-office-hours-heres-what-we-learned-at-meetbillypenn/

 

There is not a single piece of original reporting on that entire site, as far as I can see.

At least they're linking to the work they're ripping off, though.

 

Bill Penn has a heartbeat.

http://billypenn.com/2014/10/22/introducing-billy-penn-welcome-to-version-1-0/

 

I hope they do a review on the Lorin Scallops at Le Mont atop Mt. Washington.

The Incline, Billy Penn’s new sister site, launches in Pittsburgh

Though not sure why they'd be so defensive about curation/aggregation.

Nearly two years after launching Billy Penn in Philadelphia, Jim Brady’s Spirited Media on Tuesday debuted its second local news site, The Incline, in Pittsburgh.

Billy Penn readers will immediately recognize The Incline. The site designs are identical and Brady told me that The Incline will follow Billy Penn’s model of focusing on younger readers with events, an active institutional voice, and curation of other local news sources. (Billy Penn and Incline editors are adamant that what they do is curation, not aggregation.)

 

Curation sounds less theft-y.

 

Denverite...terrible name for a news source. Maybe they will use it to stay hip and fresh: "The Denverite has learned from a Denverite that Woody Paige should do more than just Around the Horn."