Local Press Co – India’s first and only crowdsourced news app
Local Press Co app has been released recently across Android and iOS . It takes the age old concept of citizen journalism and adds a mobile first twist to make it relevant in today’s world. With Local Press Co, you will never miss any news stories from your own backyard!
The idea to focus on local news may not have been a conscious one however; the idea to create an app was definitely an evolved decision. After they down the concept they spent a few weeks studying the kind of news being covered by the media. They concluded the following:
- People are interested in local news
- The media covers only a few local stories that are relevant to the masses
- Crowdsourcing was the only option
- People were already posting local news on social media
- Local news stories were getting buried among an array of content available on social media.
They team was convinced that the only way to get local news under one roof was by building an app. The design and development of the app started in Jan 2015 and they finally launched the app in June 2015 across Android and iOS Stores.
According to Punit, the founder of Local Press Co, “Local news often impacts our lives directly. Yet, its coverage seems scarce at best. With Local Press Co, that’s exactly what we want to change.”
In a world where local news often gets missed out owing to the lack of relevance to the masses, Local Press Co tries to remedy the situation by serving local news to locals. As a mobile first platform, it uses location services for pinning news reports to a location and serves it to users who are in its vicinity. Adding news is a one-step process that ensures a seamless transition for those who are used to posting news on social media.The problem of validation, often associated with news reported on social media, is also solved with the help of crowd-sourcing. Users on the app can use the ‘vouch’ or ‘dismiss’ actions to add or remove credibility from news reports. Reports with a higher vouch count end up featuring higher in the user’s report feed whereas the one’s with a high number of dismissals are pushed down and eventually removed.
Users also have complete control over what they view – right from selecting the type of news they want to view on the app to how local they want their news to be. With the help of the app’s radius preference, users can actually access news ranging from 1km from their current location to news from the entire city.To keep users engaged, the app allows for commenting, subscribing and sharing of news reports. Users also receive push notifications anytime someone interacts with a report they are interested in. Although the app has a plethora of features already, there are plans of adding more in the near future. Upcoming features include video reports, trending news & closed community news.
The Startup is based out of Mumbai and was founded in January 2015 by Punit Rajpal. Other than him, Andrea Noronha is the only other stakeholder in it. Punit handles the technology and finance. Prior to this he worked for over 7 years at Directi where he managed the Business Development and Hosting Sales teams. Andrea manages the app’s marketing & content. Andrea also worked in Directi for over 2 years in the Business Development Team.The team also includes three other members that lend a hand with online marketing, social media marketing and content curation.
They are looking at growth city wise. Currently they have focused all their marketing and promotional efforts in Mumbai. Their aim is to build an active community of citizen reporters here before they move on to other cities. They have a few marketing campaigns lined up and their goal is to eventually market the app pan-India.
The app is available on Android & iOS stores for free. Local news stories can be viewed on our website at Local Press Co
Geekopedia wishes Local Press Co best of luck for future endeavors.
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