Depending on your current position or job prospects, you may view this as either good news or bad. But Google is considering tossing quite a lot of money at a sort of DIY news service, and you can actually cast a vote on the matter.

Here’s the deal: a “real-time, user-reported news service” is one of the sixteen remaining ideas in Google’s Project 10^100 save-the-world endeavor. Google will put up as much as $10 million to support five of the ideas, and people are allowed to vote on what they think is most deserving of the funding.

The news service is supposed to “[h]elp people find and report timely, important local information. Users have submitted many ideas proposing better access to locally relevant info, including real-time news (fires, natural disasters and road accidents), disease tracking (mobile devices that track people’s health status) and personal incidents (calling to report a threatening criminal situation, natural disaster or medical emergency).”

This idea could make it a lot easier for previously unnoticed writers to get their names out there. At the same time, it could put some of the current crop of reporters out of jobs.

You can read more about Project 10^100 here and vote here if any of this sounds interesting. Voting ends October 8th.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under digital. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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