Vancouver gives rise to new citizen journalism project

The citizen journalism beat has a new kid on the block in the shape of VancouverIAM.

As you might have guessed from the name, it is a citmedia site about Vancouver, based in Vancouver. The site describes itself as:

The destination for people who want to know what’s going on in Vancouver. It gives you the tools and support to become a video journalist, internet TV and film producer and an active commentator on local politics and everyday issues about life in Vancouver.

The focus is very much on Internet TV, both in terms of hosting and offering tools for people to produce video journalism. The site already provides video channels to local organisations such as the Vancouver Film School and the Vancouver Whitecaps soccer team.

But it also aggregates what it calls the cream of blogs about Vancouver

The site is the first of several planned, with Toronto and Seattle up next. This sounds much like what Backfence tried to do in the US.

For a new online project, it has adopted an old PR model, sending me a paper new release and branded water bottle in the post. Perhaps this was because it is based in Vancouver.

It joins other citizen media efforts housed in the city, NowPublic.com and Orato.com. Interestingly, VancouverIAM has been using NowPublic to promote itself, at least from October last year when it had a soft launch.

The site does not have any advertising at the moment and the release makes no mention of its business model. It does talk about having funding available for a video journalism program.

The parent company is SoMedia Networks, an investor-backed Web 2.0 startup owned by George Fleming, a dot.com veteran who made his mark starting in the mid-90’s with firms such as eCharge and broadband network Evolution USA.