Spot.Us is officially in a beta period. It’s a phase that I want to exit as soon as possible.

What’s holding us back…….Content.

The site has been made in a five week sprint with Hashrocket.  You can follow that development process here, here, here, here, and here (What can I say, it was well documented).

Now we have a working 1.0 version of Spot.Us and we are ready to start fundraising for local Bay Area reporting. But before Spot.Us goes public in what I hope is a soft launch, we need reporters to build a few pitches.

The idea is that when we launch, Spot.Us will start fundraising for these pitches right away.

So – it’s time to find some reporters. And yes – you will get paid. At least – that’s the goal, to fundraise your salary via micro-donations. It’s also an exciting opportunity to work directly for the public.

Interested? Send me an email (david AT spot dot us). Let me know what your general idea is and I’ll send you over to the Spot.Us beta site (which is public, but not being promoted). From there – you can build a pitch and when we go live, we’ll try and fundraise the financial support you need to do professional freelance journalism.

Remember: pitches must be (a. local to the Bay Area and (b. civic journalism. No arts and entertainment stories, etc.

Looking forward to seeing what reporters in the Bay Area produce!!!!

Related posts:

1. We Are Hiring – Community Organizer
2. First look at Spot.Us in Action
3. Moving Past a Pitch – When Reporters Go Missing
4. Spot.Us is hiring!
5. Spot.Us: Show Me the Money