As I cannot read Ukrainian or Russian, I was sending a short mail in English and asking them for some information and a short profile on the project. Instantly, I received an answer and Serhiy Danylenko, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Highway, provided me all the information, I asked for and like to share with you, here.
Credits: Oleksandra Kryshtapovych
Serhiy wrote:
HighWay citizen reporters social network started August, 5 in 2005. We created web-site together with my friend Dmytro Dubilet, when we studied in Institute of International Relations in Kyiv.
The basic idea was, let the readers influence journalists as much as possible. On HighWay readers help editors decide where to place an article on the site and how much money pay to authors.
We set a goal to develop an instrument every professional reporter would dream to use. So on Highway citizen reporters work alongside with professional journalists.
Highway doesn’t have permanent staff of journalists. There are over 4500 registered users, which publish up to 80 articles a day. Editors do not tell journalists what to write about. Journalists make their own decisions on subject, style and plot of their articles. Highway editors’ work as community managers. They participate in discussions, comment the stories and shape the “web-soul” of the site, its unique online spirit and brand essence.
Any registered journalist can publish an article on Highway. Readers have 24 hours to evaluate newly published articles in special part of the site called “Live”. Then editors see which articles have the highest rank and place them on the main page of the site, while other articles are saved in the archive. Authors of articles with the highest rank get USD 2-10."
At Highway it is all about teamwork and (some of them) showing their better (back-)side for you
Left to right: Dmytro Dubilet, Highway co-founder; Oleksiy Akulov, CIO; Oleksandra Drik, PM; Mykola Gorohov, editor
Highway's revenue comes from advertisement and they planning to develop a recruiting service in the near future in order to help journalists and employers find each other.
Thanks, Serhiy! I'm looking forward to meet-up in Kyiv next week!
Update about visitors:
According to bigmir.net HW had 464,432 Unique Visitors and takes rang 13 (actual month) among UA 'mass-media and periodical press' - congratulation folks!
Update:
Meanwhile I found an even more detailed report about Highway on Highways website - it says this article has been prepared for OhmyNews global research project. As I didn't find the article on OhmyNews (yet), I link it for you from Highway.
