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The American news channel CBS has launched the citizen journalism site CBSeyemobile.com. On the Dutch blog Marketingfacts we read that the service enables people to immediately upload their pictures and videos via their mobile phone. It doesn’t work with all providers yet. Maybe that’s why there hasn’t been given too much rumour about the launch yet.

According to CBS, the service is primarily soliciting breaking news, weather, sports and political content. You can either upload your content or watch the lastest reports with your mobile phone:

Even though the way you can upload and watch photos and videos will change in the future (when most people have internet access via their phones), I think it’s a great start. It’s huge that a big news channel like CBS starts involving citizens ànd that they do it mobile. Also CNN is experimenting with the concept on iReport. Who will be first in Belgium?

That’s the entry I also posted on the CityLive blog. What I’d like to add here on this blog: I am especially guessing about the ‘why are those news channels doing this?’. And as a matter of fact, it is more than obvious (at least in my opinion ).

• First of all mobile advertising is the future . So if those news channels do things right and attract more and more visitors, they have a new advertising platform right there in the corner.
• Second of all, journalists always have their sources when needed. They don’t have to search on blogs, YouTube or Flickr for people who captured the news before anyone else -and thus also CNN and CBS- did. The breaking news is right there on their platform and thus ready to be broadcast.
  Which means CNN and CBS are ’using’ the citizen journalists in a way BUT that also works the other way around:citizen journalists use CBS and CNN as well in their quest for ‘importance’: eveybody wants to be the first to ‘break the news’.
• And that’s why there is also a ‘third of all’: when people feel CNN and CBS are really doing something with their photos and videos, there wil be a growing numer of ‘brand fans’. Those fans feel important and they feel appreciated. Moreover, they’ll tell the world

Am I forgetting something, or I am going way too far? Let me know

I’m proud For our mobile webcamp on the 26th of April, more than 120 attendees have subscribed. And really not the least when you check out the names. Even the organiser of the French mobile barcamp Phil Jeudy is joining us.

12 sponsors have accepted or even offered to help us out. Food, ice cream, a nice location,…Everything is taken care of. The city of Hasselt even allots a balloon flight. That’s what they told me on the telephone today. I’ve decided already now that organisers can participate, I’d love to fly the balloon ;-) You can find all the lastest news via the mobile webcamp site.

And even though we have a full house, you can still add your name on the webcamp site (password is ‘mobiel’, login is ‘devcamp’, then press ‘edit’ in the left corner above). When people unsubscribe, you’re in. That’s how things work Moreover, there seems to be a nice combination of people involved in content, technical and marketing matters.

I only hope for a little bit more presentation proposals. Two things seem to scare people off a bit: fist of all, it’s the first Belgian MOBILE webcamp. Lots of attendees I contacted are interested in the topic but cannot easily give a presentation about it. That’s why we’re telling them since a few days that ‘plain’ internet matters are fine as well. Secondly, the majority of the attendees join a barcamp for the first time. They don’t know the concept and the rules. So they decide to watch and learn and then give a presentation the next time. But we need them now

Yes, high time for a mobile webcamp in Belgium, since 2008 simply breathes ‘mobile’.

All the information you need to know can be found on the wiki of the mobile webcamp. With the login ‘mobiel’ and the password ‘devcamp’ you can add your name, a presentation you want to give,…

And yes, I’m very proud to announce that I’m co-organizing the event. That’s why I’m now visiting the three high schools and the university in Hasselt, to make sure students join us there. Because, yes, they are the future ànd they have the opportunity of a lifetime to exchange ideas and plans with professionals (and vice versa) 

And I never dared to hope that right now, after opening the site like two days ago, already 46 attendees have subscribed on the wiki. And quite some waw attendees, like Tom De Bruyne, Tijs Vrolix, Pascal Van Hecke and Bart Vanmaele. I’m a happy girl

By the way: also our location is waw, check it out!

This week, we have invited our first test users at CityLive: 18 crew members of the online community platform ASLPage received a pda, in order to test some mobile features.

So what can they do? Among others check their ASLPage guest books via their mobile phones, post messages in other people’s guest books, see which friends are online…Of course this is only the beginning, since CityLive wants to be very innovative providing mobile and locally relevant information. But it’s a start.

And what’s really fantastic: the ASLPage crew is really enthousiastic, spamming our forum and making their peers jalous, which is exactly what we had in mind. One small remark: only two girls were in, hope more and more girls will also embrace new technologies

The citizen reporters of HasseltLokaal were asked a while ago to be test users of the research project i-City in Hasselt. Therefore, they received a PDA together with ten other groups and 500 individual test users.  On the PDA they can consult a so-called mobile services platform i-City has created. Firms and organisations can put new projects or applications on the mobile platform and the test users are then asked to experiment with it. Afterwards, they fill out evaluations forms or are invited for debates about their experiences.

To be honest, I don’t use the i-City platform that much, above all because there aren’t that many (working) hotspots in the city centre of Hasselt.  But sometimes, I have tested quite some interesting applications. Recently, I have been asked to give in my favourite book topics (for the curious ones: German books and works on psychology). Everytime the library in Hasselt receives new books on those topics I get a message and can make a reservation. So when I’m in town, I can immediately go to the library to get the brand new book

On the 4th of December, the citizen reporters will gather to talk about their PDA experiences. They will also get a presentation of a brand new ‘City Services Platform’. You can find the information about it on the website of i-City, but for the moment the article is only available in Dutch. I wonder what the citizen reporters will have to say about the platform. I can tell that they have been using the platform a lot more than I did. Especially because HasseltLokaal is available on it and like that they can show off with their great articles and pictures everywhere they are

Anyway, it’s quite something for the citizen reporters to have those PDA’s. As volunteers, they are not paid for the many efforts they put in HasseltLokaal.  And as a matter of fact, everybody wins: i-City because they can experiment thanks to the test users, the organisation behind the citizen reporters because they have a way to reward the efforts of the citizen journalists and the reporters themselves since they are the proud owner of a PDA. Yes sir.