Media entrepreneur Jason Calacanis is the focus of discussions across the Internet as a result of his latest venture - using his publication to benefit Bay Ridge Preparatory School. Calacanis, who serves as treasurer on Bay Ridge Prep's board of trustees, posted a message on his blog this week announcing that he would sell web publishing rights to "Jason's List", his e-mail newsletter. The price: a $1,000 donation, per newsletter, to Bay Ridge Prep's Opportunity Scholarship Fund.
"I donate all my speaking fees to their scholarship fund, which helps underprivileged kids from Brooklyn go to a private school with an average class size of 16," Calacanis wrote in his original message at www.calacanis.com. "My hope is that every year I can do 10-15 newsletters and generate $10-15k, which would be matched by the school – putting a disadvantaged kid from Brooklyn into private school for two years. So cool."
Calacanis said he calls this strategy "media philanthropy" and describes it as "the trading of media assets that are not normally monetized...to an entity that could monetize it."
On Wednesday, Calacanis posted an update on his blog and said he has already received two offers from marketing firms to buy rights for ten newsletters which, in turn, would result in $10,000 for the scholarship fund. His ultimate goal is for a media company such as the New York Times, TechCrunch, or the Wall Street Journal, to pick up the publishing rights to "Jason's List".
"As a former editor, I’m sure these newsletters will get enough inbound links, re-tweets, buzz and page views to make it worth the $1,000 per post price tag," Calacanis wrote in his initial announcement.Since posting the announcement, many online media organizations have picked up on the news and have started discussing the idea.
In an article titled "How Much Is This Post Worth?", Michael Wolff, author of newser.com's Off the Grid column, wrote, "...we have become so far removed on the Internet from the idea that writing might have a cash value, that to propose it seems like a novel idea." Wolff added, "The charity angle says...you should be doing something worth something to somebody."
Wolff's article on Calacanis' idea was then picked up and published by Vanity Fair's online feature "VF Daily" as well as The Huffington Post.
Calacanis, a native of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, got his start in the media industry in 1996, by creating the Silicon Alley Reporter, which reported on New York's dot com industry. What began as a 16-page newsletter, grew into a 300-page magazine with a West Coast counterpart called Digital Coast Reporter. Calacanis went on to co-found Weblogs, Inc., which was bought by American Online in October 2005 for $30 million. He then served as General Manager of AOL's Netscape website in addition to being CEO of Weblogs. After leaving AOL, Calacanis founded Mahalo.com in May 2007. Described as a "human-powered search engine," Mahalo.com relies on human editors to produce search results that are the most relevant to the user.
You can follow Calacanis' latest venture by reading his blog at www.calacanis.com or by following him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jason.
Founded in 1998, Bay Ridge Preparatory School is an independent K-12 college preparatory school offering a strong academic program in a socially mature and positive learning environment.
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