Bloom (Bloom.li), a D.C.-based grassroots online journalism platform, has announced its plans to officially launch on Monday. The platform aims at streamlining the distribution of news by creating a location-specific CMS tool for publishers, thereby allowing reporters to post content in real-time based on the influence of their stories. On March 30, Bloom will begin accepting applications from news publishers to join their platform for free.
The basic idea behind Bloom is to “put news on a map based on the specific influence of that content,” said the company's founder, Stephen Jefferson.
For journalists, Bloom can be used to deliver their articles to an audience in a specific location. More than 85 percent of news articles are written about a single location, which highlights their dependency on geographic information, according to a 2015 Bloom Newspaper Location Study. Bloom wants to capitalize on the dominant localization of information it cited in their study.
“Think back a few years ago when office buildings and restaurants weren’t on a map; when GPS wasn’t used in our daily routine. The use of location technology grows everyday and has shown to be not only valuable for people but for companies and industries as well,” Jefferson said.
While Bloom will launch its site on Monday, it also has plans to build out an iOS and android application in the future, Jefferson said. Bloom will introducing itself to publishers through a direct outreach campaign that begins next week. Monday’s launch will provide further details regarding functionality and involvement opportunities but it will not be fully accessible to readers. In late April it will be released for free use to readers on a more complete basis. The service will remain free for both users and publishers during its developmental stage — eventually a subscription system will be built based on customer and publisher data.
For the next month, the priority will be entirely focused on signing smaller, local publishers who write primarily on their respective communities and also in furthering the Bloom.li desktop model, the Bloom founder told DC Inno. Rapid content distribution and growth will be a key factor in getting Bloom.li off the ground and running. Right now the startup is bootstrapped but it hopes to secure funding in the form of a seed round prior to the summer.
To date, Bloom has been in contact with several local publications in the Loudoun County, Va.-area. (Jefferson declined to comment on the names of these publications.) Bloom also plans on incorporating freelance material from writers, though an application process would be necessary, as it is with publications.
The platform’s CMS will be an integral aspect of Bloom's potential success, and Jefferson mentioned that it will cater to the needs of the individual journalist: “this is a platform really built for reporters.” Initially, Bloom will looking to expand its user and publisher base by centralizing community and/or city news. That being said, the more grandiose vision that Jefferson has for the startup includes international publications, a global impact and foreign contributors.
