Here is a short description of Nowpublic.com

Technology has broken the corporate news monopoly. Digital cameras, camera phones, blogs, and RSS put the tools of the news trade into the hands of the public, and now real news comes from real people everywhere. Now you can demand coverage of the stories you care about—all you need is nowPublic. Here public demand launches investigations. Story Ideas come from people on the ground, insiders, community leaders. Footage comes from eye witnesses, citizen reporters, people close to the real st.

I never knew this site until I received a request mail this morning.

Hi,

NowPublic is running a news story on starbucks profit down 97% and we’re trying to put together a collection of photos of starbucks. If you’re interested in sharing your photo, please follow the links below and feel free to add your own comment as well. Looking forward to seeing your work on the site!

In case you haven’t heard of us, NowPublic.com is a participatory news website. The requested photos will appear as thumbnails when you follow the link. I’d also encourage you to comment on the article (after following the link) if you have opinions on the topic. It will appear as a comment beneath the article (NOT as a caption to the photo).

In brief, the author on Nowpublic.com wants to use two photos in my flickr photostream (as the follows). And, here is the news, a bad news of Starbucks. XD

It is really interesting, and let me to think of 鄉民 and the Gossiping discussion group (八卦板) in PTT. I think the information from 鄉民 is really great, quick, powerful and true (well, sometimes is just gossiping), and, now, I am wondering the model like Nowpublic.com, gathering the information from users to form news, can work out or not in Taiwan…

Today is the UC system strike day, and it seems that there are strike activities in all school of UC system. The reason is the service workers of UC system are not satisfied with their salary (well, I think nobody is satisfied XD ).

It is interesting to see the strike out of Taiwan. Humm… more peaceful and more interesting, because they just raise signs, walk, shout and sing.

However, due to this strike block the entrance of campus, the Metro Bus can not enter the campus, similar to July 4th!!! The good news is today is not a holiday, so one the other guy and I thumb up to request a pick up drive. And luckily, one young mother stops and pick us up to the downtown.

The follow picture is announcement about the possible transportation impact by the strike.