13 April 2010 | Author: J. Cave SEO Consultant

Newslabs launches new news service, NewsTilt

While many content-based websites are adopting a content farm approach, one new Californian startup is hoping to break the mould, building a website and business that's based on quality news stories, well-paid journalists and community.

NewsTilt, which is owned by Y Combinator backed NewsLabs, hopes to build a successful news site focusing on the community and brands the journalists can themselves build. Essentially the website will hire quality writers who will take a semi-traditional journalistic approach to writing news stories and creating content but will take a blogger style approach to how they deal with their readers.

Journalists on the NewsTilt website will interact directly with readers, taking the time to reply to comments, take suggestions on story ideas and essentially build a community. This style of blogger-journalism is based on the success of news sites like TechCrunch and the Huffington Post, two websites which have managed to build communities and brands based on strong journalism interaction.

"The journalist", says NewsLabs Founder Paul Biggar, "is the brand, and their community tells them directly what to write, and whether they liked it."

Initially, the focus will be on community and content, keeping everything as simple as possible. Biggar and Nathan Chong, who have both personally worked on the development of the website want to work in any technical changes gradually, as the site develops and without trying to second guess what the needs of the journalists or readers will be.

And while the NewsTilt founders have strong technical backgrounds, that isn't to say the company will be lacking in its journalistic and editorial skills. NewsTilt's founding editorial team have almost 100 years of journalism and publishing experience between them, headed up by Chicago Tribune National Political Correspondent Jon Margolis and backed by a veteran team of journalists whose work has appeared in popular news outlets such as Newsweek, The Guardian and The New York Times.

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