Next big thing: The 'uberfication' of crowdsourced news

Get ready to hear a lot about the “uberfication” of user-generated content. Yes, it’s a mouthful. But it’s also the next big thing. Fresco News, a two-year-old New York start-up, sees itself becoming a hot property as it cracks the code on local amateur content generation. I first wrote about Fresco [“The Uberfication of news”] as Tronc impresario (and chairman) Michael Ferro sought to buy the company in July, amid a frenzy of efforts to find lots of cheap-to-produce content to Tronc, the websites of the newspapers owned by the company formerly known as Tribune Publishing. Tronc’s effort to buy Fresco seems unlikely to succeed, as this hot company – several sources tell me – finds itself well-courted by more stable buyers. Both 21st Century Fox and AOL have shown buying interest as well as Tronc, confidential sources say.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see even greater interest given the priority many news companies, both legacy and start-up, have been lately giving to ad-friendly, video-delivered news. Still, it appears more likely that Fresco will remain an independent company, at least for now. Simply, Fresco News now enables local TV stations to assign, receive and quickly get on air and online lots of amateur-shot newsy videos in their metro area. Its secret sauce: Uberizing the supply chain process from station assignment to Fresco “qualified” shooter to shooting smartphone video to uploading and optimizing its quality for quick delivery to consumers, online or on the air.