Tackable – Journalism 2.0

Turning user generated content into trackable news.

Tackable is a bootstrap start up out of Palo Alto that wants to organise worldwide media on a map.

Currently envisioned through an iPhone app, Trackable looks to set ‘assignments’ – take a photo of the remains of last weeks burnt house, write what the city looks like from the top floor of your house… – ‘assignments’ that will begin by rolling out through their media partners the MediaNews Group in the San Francisco Bay area this year.

Their newspaper partners will publish ‘assignments’ in their papers, the content generated will be fed back onto the Tackable platform, then free for the publisher’s, or anyone, to utilise.

But the wider idea that Tackable wants to tackle is Journalism 2.0. User generated content on a worldwide scale. For example, should you want to see more on a North Pakistan outbreak, you could simply drag the Tackable map to that area and catch all the photos, live tweets and public stories being taken by users at that very moment. The map interface also leads to the ability to watch stories as they emerge. Should much activity begin happening over Portland, Oregon in a moment, news editors could zoom in to see if there was something there worth covering in greater depth.

Aside from tapping the individual’s need for acknowldegement or contribution to a social network Tackable will also engage game mechanics to encourage content. ‘Karma Points’ that in time could be exchanged for meals at restaurants or other physical world rewards. Looking to also allow live and recorded video content, Tackable is a certain example of where mobile technology could lead us.