Getting worse .... ScoopLive Turns Us All into Paparazzi

ScoopLive Turns Us All into Paparazzi

According to Matthieu Stefani, Co-Founder of ScoopLive, “Every event has its witnesses.” And with camera phones being so prevalent, every witness now has a chance to make some real money on what they’ve captured.

The Web has exploded with amateur videos of everything from the Saddam Hussein hanging to Michael Richards hanging himself - all filmed by “citizen journalists.” Up until now, though, cashing in on these stories has been hard to do.

A Marketplace for Monetizing Scoops

ScoopLive just announced that it was out of beta in the Tech Crunch forums as one of a handful of entrants into the on-line marketplace for monetizing scoops, whose competitors already include Scoopt.com and SpyMedia.com.

The solution doesn’t make as much sense for professional photojournalists that use well-established photo and press agencies. It makes far more sense for the amateur market that may only sell one photo or video, but it could be the one picture of Paris Hilton that nets them $50,000.

ScoopLive was initially launched in the European market with approximately 150 buyers in 15 countries. The site has attracted 2,500 reporters in 60 countries and has already been successful in brokering sales including a cover image for Voici, the French equivalent of People Magazine in the U.S. (it’s the photo of two famous French actors kissing each other at a night club, but the real story is above that photo).

Join, Upload, Sell

Users of ScoopLive can create a free account and begin to upload their media, tagging it so that it can be found by buyers (my camera phone video of fans rushing the field after OSU stomped Michigan may not make me rich).

If it’s a scoop, the media will be auctioned off to buyers and sold with a 30-day exclusivity clause. If it’s just an interesting item, it will go into ScoopLive’s image bank and be sold at a fixed rate. Sellers retain the copyrights to their media and can earn up to 85% of the final sale to a buyer.

Popular and Profitable

Today the average citizen journalist may think uploading a video to YouTube is a big deal. But in the near future sites like ScoopLive will allow authors to not only make their content popular, but profitable as well.

Wil Schroter is a contributor to TechCrunch as well as the founder and CEO of GoBigNetwork.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Blogged with Flock