Now Public is a Vancouver Canada based citizen journalism site that provides a forum for users to link to, create and comment on news that’s important to them.

Rather than a popup window, Now Public frames the news site making it easy to both comment and view the news story you are posting. They also have a rights management platform for the photos and videos you upload so you can set how other users or news sites can use and distribute your content.

I can see Now Public being a resource for me to post about some interests that I have an opinion on but not enough of a content focus to build a whole blog on. The value is if I want to link to or write an article on the Edmonton Oilers hockey team, I’ve got a venue to do it with a potential for more traffic than if I were to generate my own niche Oilers blog.

Citizen Journalist sites face the old chicken and the egg problem. Without a ton of readers, I’m less inclined to put my news or commentary on a site. Without a ton of TARGETED content, you have a difficult time getting readers. A generalist citizen journalism platform is a challenging proposition.

Sites like Digg picked a niche of geek tech news and have done very well. They are THE source for the latest geek news. If Digg was ANY news rather than a tech focused news, I don’t think they would be nearly as successful. Of course Digg doesn’t let you create new content is only the distribution side of the equation.

As a voracious consumer of news and information, I’ll hit Findory or Google News for my ‘world news’ as they learn what kind of news I’m interested in. Alternatively, I’ll hop on CNN. This provides me no way to be a part of the discussion, but when it comes to world news, I just want to know ‘what’s going on’.

Though I’m certainly not an expert in citizen journalism, I do know what I’m missing that I would love to have – laser-beam focus on the local. I have no way to get my 6 o’clock local news via RSS today. Our two daily news papers, The Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun (both without RSS feeds) just don’t get it. City TV has an RSS feed but they don’t have the other side of the equation, the ability to create a discussion around the news by enabling comments.

I’m a believer in citizen journalism and know that a platform that can successfully facilitate the quick and easy capture and distribution of news and commentary is a great business.

My recommendations (for no:
- Seed the news - Get some student journalists and seed the Now Public site with local news. Even if it was as simple as linking to all the ‘big media’ articles and providing a little commentary. That would seed the site as a resource. Once there was a critical mass, I think you’d see new content being created to compliment and extend the ‘big media’.
- Personalization - I really don’t know how many articles are on Now Public but if it were to learn from my reading behaviors, and show me news it thinks I’d be interested in, that would be a big step.

Disclosure: Leonard Brody was one of our instructors at the ACVC event in California, he’s a great Canadian and is co-CEO of Now Public.

Technorati Tags: citizen journalism, digg, edmonton, news, now public, web 2.0, web2.0, web20

ClaimID is a new service to manage your online identity.

The standard email signup is available but Cloudalicious has more details.

claimID will allow users to track, classify, annotate, prioritize and share the information that is about them online.

It’s about staking your claim to the things out there about you. It’s about drawing a line in the sand over the things that aren’t about you. It’s about managing the facts and the image you want. Take back some of the control that’s been lost to the search engines. Use the search engines to help you reclaim who you are.

Technorati Tags: identity, claimid, web 2.0, web2.0, web20

No trip would be complete to the Silicon Valley without attending a blogger dinner, BBQ, Meetup, Beerbash or other social excuse to get out from our computers and meet in person.

Mr. Dave Winer was the draw and it was great to meet a major industry innovator. Additionally, there was a great crew of people I’ve only read about.

The food was excellent with few spicy appetizers and lots of flavor. The sit down environment gave a intimate setting, though not ideal for networking, I did have a few very interesting conversations.

Dave mentioned he’ll likely be doing this more often with a better opportunity to interact. Sounds good to me.

I passed around a couple index cards to know who was there.
If I missed you, comment and I’ll add you. If the link is ‘off’ I couldn’t read it/got an email instead of a blog address and/or couldn’t quickly google it.

Some of those in attendance included:

• Dave Winer
• 
  Scott Rosenberg
• Enric Teller
• Geoff McQueen
• Nik Cubrilovic
• Gabe Rivera
• Scott Mace
• Chad Williams
• Rafael Ebron
• Lance Knobel
• Raines Cohen
• Shannon Clark
• Carl Mercier
• Scott Beale
• Sylvia Paull
• Jay Cross
• Steve Hill
• Shel Holtz
• Tom McGannon
• Andy Brown
• Ed Piou
• Robert W. Anderson
• Tracey Taylor

If someone has the following blog addresses, let me know.

• Craig Jorasch
• Barry Abrahamson
• Cassie Decker

I’m heading back to Canada tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll be back soon enough. I really enjoyed my week++ here, met a ton of great people and learned a great deal.

Thank you Silicon Valley. I’ll be back soon!

Yesterday I attended the IBD Network event Turning Your Consumer Startup into a Breakout Play .

I was honored and excited to meet my first blog reader in person. And what a first reader! Debbie Landa (Hi Debbie) is the CEO and Founder of IBDNetwork, her energy was contagious and her questions were very insightful.

Though the event was sold out, I managed to make the waiting list and take in the event.

They had an all-star panel of Reid Hoffman, CEO of Linked In, Chris Kelly VP Corporate Development of Facebook and Billy McNair, Co-Founder of Peerflix. Kevin Efrusy, Partner with Accel Partners moderated the panel.

The event flew by and I took a TON of notes. The insights of these thought leaders was fantastic. I’m drafting a post to share a few of the things I took away from the discussion.

IBDNetwork not only puts on these evening events they also produce the Under the Radar
programs that “showcase of early-stage innovation”.

I met a number of startups and have my first face to face interview this afternoon with Al Wasserberger, CEO of Intellext. I’m here till Friday so if anyone wants to pitch their ideas let me know and I can hopefully fit you in my schedule.

IBD Networks is a leading source for valuable insights and great networking. If you’re building a company ‘in the space’ you’d be negligent to not take in their events.

The ACVC event I’m in town for, is certainly helping my company Zigtag position itself for growth. This event is designed to help Alberta companies prepare themselves for venture financing and provides a unique link bridging the high tech communities of Alberta and the Silicon Valley.

I’m learning a great deal from some incredibly talented and experienced people including Art Monk of Sherwood Meridian and Sean Wise of Wise Mentor Capital.

On Monday, I’ll be doing my first public presentation on Zigtag to a group of Angel Investors. I’m anxious to see how I’m able to translate the vision of Zigtag into a great 10 minute presentation.

Wish me luck!

P.S. I purposely left my RSS reader at home. My 1500+ RSS feeds will surely reveal a bunch of Web 2.0 companies to post about when I get back to Canada. I hope the ’shakes’ from RSS withdrawl will subside in a day or two.