Spot Us: community funded reporting

My fellow Propeller Scout, David Cohn, founded something awesome that I think everyone should check out. It's a project called Spot Us:

Spot.Us is a nonprofit project of the Center for Media Change. We are an open source project, to pioneer “community funded reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. All donations are tax deductible and if a news organization buys exclusive rights to the content, your donation will be reimbursed. Otherwise, all content is made available to all through a Creative Commons license. It’s a marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organizations can come together and collaborate.

Ever since I started my first lame Where's My Burrito? website and weblog, I've been excited by the potential we have in the 21st century to use the immediacy and ubiquity of the internets to deliver a serious challenge to the status quo. I can't wait to see what happens with Spot Us and the people it inspires over the coming months.