Digital Journal Adds New Edge to Citizen Journalism With Next-Gen Site

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We're happy to announce an unprecedented list of dozens of new features on DigitalJournal.com, from blogs to images to group discussions and more. The biggest upgrade in the history of the website will allow everyone to contribute.

Digital Journal, Inc. today announced a myriad of new features available on its news site, DigitalJournal.com, that will drastically improve the ways in which Citizens and Citizen Journalists interact, communicate and cover news online.

In an effort to stay ahead of the times and spearhead new areas of online collaboration in a journalistic environment, DigitalJournal.com has opened its site to participation and contributions from anyone around the world. The new features will allow anyone to blog about news that matters to them, upload and share images, join groups to discuss important events, as well as provide an opportunity to cover news as a paid citizen journalist.

"DigitalJournal.com was the first online news community that offered payment to citizen journalists when it first launched its citizen media website in September 2006, and since then we've seen an overwhelmingly positive response from our community," said Chris Hogg, Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of DigitalJournal.com. "With DigitalJournal.com's new stable of features, we want to completely open up the news gathering process to everyone."

Members are free to sign up as either a Citizen or Citizen Journalist. Citizens can run their own blog on the site, upload images and create albums, join groups of people who share similar interests, vote on news and images they find important and discuss and debate issues of the day.

DigitalJournal.com will continue to offer members a chance to sign up and work as a Citizen Journalist, where anyone can submit a sample of writing to be approved to work as a paid reporter. Citizen Journalists receive all the same privileges of Citizens, but only they have a chance to be paid to report news as a DigitalJournal.com Citizen Journalist.

"The added functionality on this next-generation version of DigitalJournal.com will give everyone a chance to be part of the citizen media revolution," said Alex Chumak, Vice-President of I.T., Chief Architect, DigitalJournal.com. "We've included features to allow everyone to take part in the news-gathering process, such as blogs and Groups, while also creating powerful tools such as Live Events."

"News is no longer collected and published solely by mainstream media, and DigitalJournal.com will continue to be an outlet in which everyday people can be part of this multimedia revolution," said David Silverberg, Managing Editor, DigitalJournal.com. "In many cases, citizens are more passionate about important events, and work faster and more efficiently than mainstream press. DigitalJournal.com's community of writers, commenters and readers have proven time and again they can cover a story with incredible depth and accuracy."

DigitalJournal.com's new announcement is aimed at strengthening the website so its members have more tools and flexibility.

What's New: An Overview

It would take you all day to read about every feature DigitalJournal.com is launching as part of this announcement, so we've boiled it down to the major ones. In no particular order, we're happy to announce the following new features:

Customize Everything: DigitalJournal.com got a major face lift on its front page, and it's all designed to put you in control. The front page now consists almost entirely of movable "widgets." Ranging from Top News to Groups to Images to Live Events, DigitalJournal.com allows you to move any content and customize your front page. Arrange the page so the content that matters to you most is on top. Or close widgets that don't fit with your interests. If you're logged in to the site, we'll save your layout for the next time you visit us.

Post Blogs: Whether you're a professional journalist, Citizen Journalist or just someone with an opinion, DigitalJournal.com invites you to join our rapidly-expanding community to cover topics that matter to you. Start your own blog, or blog as part of a Group on any issues that matter to you. Everyone can blog about any subject matter they find important. To find other members' blogs, all you need to do is click on their name. If you see a cool comment or interesting photo, click on the name associated with it and see what else that user is up to! (More on Blogs)

Collaborate with Images: What would news be without pictures? DigitalJournal.com now allows anyone to upload huge images to the site, through a front-page widget or within articles. All images appear in a new photo category on the site and can be voted on by members. Members can also collaborate by cross-posting images, meaning you can add as many images as you like to your article, or someone else's. The idea with DigitalJournal.com images is to collaborate as a community, so if you have an image related to someone else's news event, upload them and channel your inner photojournalist. You can also turn off this feature and stay in control of all images on your own articles and blogs. (More on Images)

Join or Create a Group: DigitalJournal.com is happy to introduce a new feature allowing all of its members to join and create Groups around various subjects. Be it a McCain or Obama fan Group, a Group focusing on cool gadgets, a city Group or even a favourite food Group, you can join or create a DigitalJournal.com Group to share ideas and news or events with friends and other contributors. Once you are a member of a DigitalJournal.com Group, you can immediately start blogging with everyone in the Group. If you start a Group, you are in charge of it so you can approve new members and remove content. You can also appoint other administrators to share the leadership role with you. All members can subscribe to Group blog feeds and stay up-to-date on everything that's posted. (More on Groups)

Live Events: DigitalJournal.com now displays all of the site's action right on the front page of its site in a new Live Events widget. Watch to see articles getting "upvoted," who is commenting, and what new articles are posted. If it's happening on the site, you can find it in our Live Events tracker.

Get Paid to Report News: In September 2006, DigitalJournal.com launched the Web's first revenue-sharing initiative for citizen journalists and bloggers, where DigitalJournal.com shares a portion of its advertising revenue with all Citizen Journalists through what we call our "moneypot." We are continuing this fantastic feature and invite anyone to sign-up and join the team. With an always-growing cash pool, every single Citizen Journalist gets a chance to compete for a share of the moneypot, so the more news a Citizen Journalist posts, the more he or she can earn. Everyone is welcome to apply. If you prefer to just blog and contribute for fun (unpaid), we welcome that too -- it's entirely up to you! (More on becoming a Citizen Journalist)

Live Weather: Get the most up-to-date weather information right on the front page of DigitalJournal.com, and customize it completely for you. You can add up to five weather monitors from almost any city in the world. Monitor your local weather and add a station to see what the weather is like in your friend's or family's hometown.

These are just a few of the big features we're introducing to the latest version of DigitalJournal.com but much more awaits you. Click through the site and discover tons more content, action and interaction across the entire site.

Join as a Citizen and you have all these features, or apply to work as a Citizen Journalist and get paid to report the news. At this time, we're only offering payment for news articles written by Citizen Journalists but there is a lot more you can do on the site and if you don't want to apply right now, then don't worry – you can always apply to write later. Start out by blogging, uploading images, joining a Group or getting in on a debate. There's lots to do.

This upgrade also brings with it a bunch of new features so we're also updating our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Please make sure you get a chance to review it.