Edit 07 August 2008 This proposal has been passed along to Knight Foundation for consideration. http://drupal.org/node/292583
This project will create and host a Facebook Application which enables individuals and groups to publish online "newspapers". In doing so, it will contribute code to Drupal modules allowing anyone to host a similar venture.
The online newspaper we envision allows timely publication of text, images and media; similar to already available blogging sites, but emulating a widely understood newspaper model. Specifically, our model will support:
- Multiple user roles including Editor, Contributor, Subscriber.
- Workflow allowing Contributors to submit content that Editors revise before publishing.
- Subscriber-only content and content for the public at large.
- Configurable sections to the newspaper, i.e. national, local, sports, etc.
- Configurable page layout showing headlines from various sections.
By hosting a Facebook application, the barriers to entry will be particularly low. Anyone can create their own newspaper and collaborate with others to produce content. We envision use cases including but not limited to:
- A high school or college newspaper.
- A family newspaper announcing weddings, reunions, etc.
- A little league team or sports tournament.
- Tenants in an apartment building or neighborhood.
- Any small or specialized community.
We believe hosting a Facebook application will make this project easy to use. However, we do not want to limit ourselves to the Facebook platform only. So we intend to make all our content and features available outside of Facebook as well. To use a hypothetical example (we don't have the newspaper.com domain) a browser visting apps.facebook.com/newspaper/paper/my_news would show my_news in a Facebook application, while another browser visiting newspaper.com/paper/my_news would see the same paper in regular HTML pages. In the future, the same content could be made available over Open Social (social networks other than Facebook).
Our proposed project will be a powerful tool for digital publishing, centered around the free exchange of information and ideas and allowing people to improve their communities both local and virtual. We believe we are pushing the barriers to entry as low as possible by exposing the tool as a Facebook Application. In doing so, we allow relatively unsophisticated users to publish without the need for hosting or installing software; they need only access to the internet, possibly from a shared computer.
We also provide the tool as open source software. This allows advanced users to take complete control of the tool, host it themselves and potentially improve upon it.
Development would directly benefit the Drupal for Facebook project, which is promising but not yet mature. During the course of this project we will extend and improve that project; making it easier to develop any Facebook application on Drupal, and to expose any content already in Drupal on Facebook.
Where possible we will leverage third-party modules. For example, we expect each of our "newspapers" to be implemented as an Organic Group. As good Drupal citizens we will contribute back any improvements or upgrades made to such modules.
While we intend to host a branded application, we also plan to contribute back the code that makes the application possible. This will include an install profile with each of the third-party modules our application uses. Thus a sophisticated user would be able to host her own collaborative newspaper site and Facebook application, and develop her own look, feel and branding. Another sophisticated user could use our Facebook App as an example to build their own completely different one.
We expect our application to be up and running 6 months after acceptance of this proposal.
As a hosted application, we expect development to continue even after the initial go-live date. We hope that ongoing development and support will be funded via advertising or subscription-based premium services.
Our plans include hosting a branded version of this project. So most users will access the project easily. Either they add the application to an existing facebook account, or they sign up directly on the application homepage (URL to be determined). These users would need only access to the internet to use the service. More sophisticated users would access the project's source code via drupal.org's download pages.
This project is led by Dave Cohen, who has been contributing to Drupal for 3 years and is also founder of the Drupal for Facebook project.
The rest of the team is to be determined.
The following approximate estimate accounts for 2 developers working part-time for 6 months. Also a creative resource to work on branding, look and feel; documentation; some marketing and PR; and hosting for the first year.
2 developers @ $100/hour, 300 hours each = $60,000
1 media writer @ $65/hour, 100 hours = $6,500
1 creative @ $85/hour, 40 hours = $3,400
Marketing and advertising approximately $5,000
Hosting for first year up to $2,400
Total approximate estimate: $77,300.