$4.6m… for, erm, what?
Citizen journalism outfit CJReport.com is suitably chuffed to raise $4.6m in funding from Sequoia Capital, an a+ venture capital company. So what does CJReport.com do?
On CJReport, anyone can edit (even anonymously) and start contributing to stories in the usual categories (business, technology, entertainment, …). Users can write their own stories and upload their own photos, or simply submit a story from somewhere else on the web. Think of it as a Wikipedia for news.
Co-founder Laurent Van Winckel said the money will be used to open new offices in Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu and San Francisco along with other cities to reach a broader range of citizen journalists in the local areas.
But visit the home page and what do you see? A logical start is the Latest News section, where we find… oops.
The top two stories, repeated in the World News section, are April Fools spoofs, still on the site 11 days after they ‘broke’.
The fifth story down with a dateline of Sunday, March 30 2008 caught my eye for a different reason:
Python bursts after swallowing alligator
Yup, that’s the same bursting python that we read about in 2005. Same pic, too… and damn near the same text, slightly churned.
The original story on BBC News:
An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida’s swamps. The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded. The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park. The rangers say the find suggests that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators’ leading position in the food chain in the swamps.
And the CJReport version two and a half years later:
A very unusual clash between a 13-foot (3.9 meters) python and a 6-foot (1.8 meters) alligator has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida’s swamps. The Burmese python tried to gobble up its fearsome rival whole but then exploded. The remains of the two prodigious reptiles were discovered by surprised rangers in the Everglades National Park. The rangers say the find implies that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators’ leading position in the food chain in the swamps.
Elsewhere, the lead story is just farcical:
Olympics flame arrives in Beijing amid protests
Updated 1 week 5 days 10 hours ago
Ah, I could go on by why bother? It’s too easy. We, the readers, are being taken for mugs, as are contributors. As so often, there is zero – ZERO – value in this crap. So good luck with the investment, Sequoia. CJReport doesn’t need an injection of millions of dollars; it’s crying out for sodium thiopental.
Maybe Jason Calacanis will bring in the bacon for Sequoia with Mahalo – a site I’ll be returning to shortly because possibly, just possibly, it points the way forward.
UPDATE: Gah, so it was an April Fool gag. Well spotted, John Kelly (in the comments). I’ll be wearing the dunce’s hat in the corner for a while.