Britt asked us to post an intro of ourselves. Here's a bit about me...

My name is Jeff Reifman and I'm the founder of NewsCloud.com.

In 1991, I joined Microsoft as a Group Program Manager where I helped launch MSNBC.com.

In 1997, I founded Habitat Espresso and the Four Angels Café, operating them as community-centered businesses that donated their profits to regional charities. My efforts were featured on NBC Nightly News, The Lehrer News Hour, Good Morning America and in Seattle media.

In 1999, I left Microsoft, raising $2 million in venture capital to found GiftSpot.com, an electronic gift certificate company, later acquired by GiftCertificates.com. Let's just say the investment with GiftCertificates didn't turn out as well as it should have.

In 2001, I founded ActionStudio.org and began building Web-based services for nonprofits. ActionStudio received funding from The Omidyar Foundation and was later acquired by Groundspring. Groundspring later downsized and returned ActionStudio to me to run on my own. This was before it merged with NetworkForGood.

In 2004, I wrote three features for the Seattle Weekly about Microsoft's technology, its corporate practices and about my own experience with socially responsible investing.

In 2005, I launched CommonBits and CommonTimes which later merged in to the collaborative social news site NewsCloud. NewsCloud is a self-funded effort. I work on my own most days (until I can ramp up funding and traffic on the site) from coffee shops in the Seattle area ... I'm in one right now by the way. 

I decided to make NewsCloud an open source effort and spend time making it a great platform so that it can benefit other organizations. Control of the media is so increasingly dominated by fewer and fewer for-profit corporations, I felt it was important to share the publishing technology behind NewsCloud for future organizations.

Working alone without pay or funding is challenging...and I can't do the quality of work that I'd always like to deliver. That's one of the reasons I've nominated NewsCloud for the NetSquared innovation program. Outside support will help make the platform easier to adopt and more accessible to a broader number of organizations. Read Expanding Access to the NewsCloud Open Source Media Platform. I would appreciate your comments and feedback on the proposal.