ConsenSys, a well-known firm that deals in blockchain technology, has
ConsenSys, a well-known firm that deals in blockchain technology, has announced its collaboration with news media industry leaders to grow and develop a WordPress-based news platform called NewsPack.
This announcement has come via an official press release published from ConsenSys’s end recently. The said news platform which will be developed by WordPress is expected to be a revenue-generating, profit-making media enterprise.
The official website of NewsPack explains the project as:
“Automattic Inc, the parent company of WordPress.com, is joining with other news industry leaders to develop an advanced open-source publishing and revenue-generating platform for news organizations. The effort is designed to address some of the persistent obstacles to creating economically sustainable models for journalism, particularly at the local level.”
To aid in this effort, ConsenSys has put forward a sum of $350,000 to this new project, the NewsPack, which is designed to be an open-source platform where news media outlets can publish their news articles in order to reach out to a larger audience.
The ConsenSys investment forms only a portion of the total amount raised by the firms masterminding this project. Initiated by Automattic (parent company of WordPress), and its two partners: News Revenue Hub and Spirited Media, this project has managed to garner a whopping $2.4 million investment in the first year of funding itself. Besides ConsenSys, leading players in related sectors such as Google News, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Lensfest Institute for Journalism and so on have all come on board for this project.
A WordPress post from Mark Armstrong, cited in the NewsPack website says:
“Today we’re excited to announce funding for a new platform, Newspack by WordPress.com, aimed at small- and medium-sized news organizations. Google, through the Google News Initiative, is taking the lead in backing the project and has committed $1.2 million. Other funders include The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which is contributing $400,000; ConsenSys, the venture studio backing Civil Media, which is contributing $350,000; and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which is contributing $250,000. An additional $200,000 from a fifth source is expected to be contributed toward the project later this month.”
ConsenSys is expected to do more than just invest in this brand new PoC or proof of concept effort by WordPress. It is also expected to handle the blockchain-based internal plugging system called Civil for the new platform. Civil will make decentralized content storage and sharing not just possible but also simple.