DigiDave
David Cohn has decided to leave Spot.Us four months after the crowdfunded journalism site became part of American Public Media's crowdsourcing platform, Public Insight Network. When APM took it over, Cohn had planned to stay involved in a contract role. Now, he writes on his blog:

It has come to my realization, however, that in its new form Spot.Us is no longer the best place for me. In many respects that’s perfectly fine. ... With this post I’m handing full reigns of Spot.Us over to APM not just in ownership (which already happened) but in terms of direction. This change has been going on in the background for some time and now it’s official. This is me taking a bow and exiting stage left.

When I asked him what happened, Cohn told me by email: (more...)

Spot.us The Columbia Missourian is using crowdfunding site Spot.us to raise $500 for an open-records request. The newspaper sought a copy of the city of Columbia's parking ticket records, and was told to pay $500 for an outside vendor to convert the "arcane" database into something usable. The Missourian is paying $150, and is asking supporters to pitch in the other $350 (the Missourian is owned by a nonprofit and operated by the University of Missouri School of Journalism, so money is tight). As of Friday afternoon, 53 people had raised more than $425, leaving the campaign only $75 short of the goal.

Romenesko+ Misc. | DigiDave
David Cohn, who launched community-funded reporting site Spot.Us in 2008, will be conducting research on economic models of online journalism publications and help to develop business products for supporting hyperlocal news sites. He'll be working with three community sites run by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism: MissionLocal.org, OaklandNorth.net and RichmondConfidential.org. "These sites will be testing grounds for experimentation to aid in the research for building sustainable business models for small news websites," says a press release. Cohn writes on his blog that he'll "remain an active part of Spot.Us and in the coming weeks we should have some exciting news which will cement it as an ongoing business (elevated from a mere experiment) for at least another two years." (more...)