The Viewspaper - Interview

I met Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, founder of The Viewspaper, at WSYA and also had a chance to interview him. Shiv told me he has been making the most of his time at event and sees it as a good opportunity to find out, what other people are doing, and to get new ideas.

Here are the questions and answers:

How do you want to change India with The Viewspaper?
I want to change India by creating a powerful voice for young people that is heard and can make a difference. I also want to change the perception that youth are not serious and cannot talk sense.

How many persons do you have in the staff running the service?
We are currently a staff of 6 people.

What concrete changes to the world have you made with the site?
I think what we have done is created a voice for young people which is taken seriously. For the first time we have created a media company which carries young peoples opinions on anything and everything.

What is the most memorable feedback you have got about The Viewspaper?
The most memorable feedback that i have got about The Viewspaper is that it changed a persons life by giving the person the opportunity to say what he felt like. The confidence it gave him resulted in him becoming journalist.

You describe the goal behind The Viewspaper: “In our hearts we believe that we are part of a revolution that is growing. A revolution that is taking the world by storm.” What kind of revolution are you seeing ahead?
The revolution that we are talking about is that of change. Change caused by creating conversations and getting young people to express what they think.

Thanks for the interview, Shiv, and good luck for the future plans of The Viewspaper – maybe we’ll see it also in Finland some day!

Write3: Interview

Some time ago I introduced you a citizen journalism tool & platform called Write3, winner of Pursue Truth! -catergory. After spending only one day in WSY Awards I’ve already learned quite a bit more about this awesome project! I met the creator of Write3 S M Ashraf Abir (CEO of Multimedia Content & Communication Ltd) in person and had a talk with him about his work in Write3.

"I always want to change my country into a developed,
secured, youth connected society. " - S M Ashraf Abir

Behind every success there's a story

Earlier the day Mr. Abir had a pitching presentation at WSYA about Write3. He told us why he started this potential world wide known citizen journalism tool.

In 2009 Mr. Abir went to his village in Bangladesh. During the visit he met his old friend who showed him a shocking video. Mr. Abir’s friend had been witnessing a 4-year-old girl’s shocking kidnap. Three men had just come and kidnapped a little girl. Mr. Abir’s old friend had been able to find a hideaway and filmed the event. 
After the shocking happening he went to the police station and showed his video footage to the authorities. Thanks to the video the police tracked down the kidnappers and saved the little girl’s life.

This event was very striking to Mr. Abir and he wanted to create a new kind of media platform for the citizens. Now we know this platform as Write3 where anyone can publish stories of their own lives or events they witness.

Video footage posted by Write3 users

At the moment Write3 is rising to be more known in Bangladesh and it’s advertised in mainstream media. Daily the Write3 mobile application is being downloaded 470 (avg.) times. The application is available to download from Nokia Ovi store and in December 2011 the mobile application is available for Android Market as well.

Developed future ahead

Mr. Abir is looking brightly to the future and he sees that the platform will have 5000 regular citizen journalists. He also assumes that Write3 will have 1 million readers by the next 6 months.
Write3 has a lot of potential because its simple idea and easy platform. Mr. Abir was even hoping that people from Finland would start to participate to the project after I promised to advertise Write3 to people. I do see a risk in this because the cultures and issues between Bangladesh and Finland are very, very different - each other’s opposites even - especially when it comes to topics like human rights and corruption.
Of course there will be lots of benefits as well if you combine different cultures together in Write3. People get to know new cultures and get new perspective in to their own lives by seeing how the every day things are somewhere else. Through this point of view people might start to be more active and stand for their rights in their own lives which is the golden idea of Write3.

So if you're inspired to blog and report about the issues of your country, area or city - join Write3 and tell about it to the world!

Links about Write3:
Website
Facebook

The Viewspaper: Introduction

The Viewspaper is India's largest youth paper. It’s a combination of blogs, newspaper, social networks and a magazine, focusing on various subjects, such as politics, arts, education, sports, and entertainment. It’s seen by more than 150,000 readers a month and publishes daily articles written by youth staff. Based on citizen journalism concept, it allows young people from around the world to express their views and thoughts to change the mindsets of people. It aims to become a part of a growing revolution, encouraging youth to think further and become responsible citizens of the country.

Founded by Shiv Bhaskar Dravid in 2007, driven by the disconnection between young and older generations, The Viewspaper now succeeds in combining the power of blogs, social networks and community, highlighting the important factors which can bring the change in the society. Despite it’s relatively young age, The Viewspaper has been able to compete with other newspapers in the market, and been credited in creating a platform for the youth and a new niche in media. In the last couple of months Shiv has also moved the idea further beyond India: The Viewspaper has soft launch of its U.K. edition available while U.S. and Dubai editions are already on the drawing board. Views TV, courses in writing and an online school of journalism are also some of the next steps in expansion.

The Viewspaper seems to have an active Facebook community and lots of young people participating and commenting on the topics. It is easy to read the articles, but finding info about writing to the site is difficult. The site also uses Facebook plugins for commenting and writing the articles - so how about the people not in Facebook?

About making a concrete change to the world, The Viewspaper aims to bring about social change by consolidating the opinions of the youth on current events and relevant topics, based on the assumption that when lots of young people express their views on the same subject at the same time, the conversation has the potential to be a catalyst for change. I’d like to hear more about concrete examples of changes the site has made to people's lives to contemplate, how potential category/overall winner could it be compared to other nominees.

Links:
Website: http://theviewspaper.net
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/viewspaper
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/TheViewspaper

Write3: Introduction

I want to introduce you a brilliant mobile journalism tool and platform from Bangladesh called Write3. The project is one of the winners at WSYA category Pursue the Truth! The leader of the project is Khan Suny Md Ashraf with co-producers Racy Gomes, Zaki Haider, Mynul Islam.

Write3 is a brand new, global venture in citizen journalism. The idea of this project is to give people the chance to be true journalist and uncover the truth. Using Write3 is really simple. People who want to participate can download Write3 mobile application and report from wherever they are and whatever they feel is news worthy.

This way people can share their own life stories, discoveries and experiences with the world by reporting to Write3. The news are instantly available to view and comment by others at the online news journal write3.com.

This kind of tool is really much needed in countries like Bangladesh which are hungry for independent and politically uncontrived news, Write3 provides a social media platform where citizens can be heard. Developed primarily in English and the Bangla local language, Write3 will expand to other languages by end of 2011.

I will look forward to meet the staff and creators of Write3 and report to you more detailed information of this tool's and platform's future.