Project Goals Launch and showcase twelve media partners using Facebook applications to increase engagement and revenue Expand the capabilities of our existing Facebook application while broadening participation in our open source community

The NewsCloud Facebook Application Not duplicating your web site in Facebook Building features that strengthen community and engagement using the Facebook platform Moves beyond the confinement of Facebook Pages Re-architected for scalability, manageability and robustness in Ruby on Rails Available for open source download

Partners The following partners have given permission to announce their involvement: Charlotte Observer (live) The Boston Globe Detroit Free Press WKYC TV NBC 3 Cleveland, Ohio KPCC Southern California Public Radio The State Press covering Arizona State University

Why the Charlotte Observer is using this tool Reach out to people where they are, as opposed to making them come to us. Our focus is people who don't currently read our paper or website. Create a core of very engaged users through this application that we can use in other ways to help the community and our organization Show the Observer is keeping up with trends, giving a "coolness" to our brand Show that cash can be generated from social media to support journalism

Links The Charlotte Observer’s Insight application http://apps.facebook.com/observerinsight The Seattle Needle Web w/Facebook Connect prototype http://theseattleneedle.com Also on Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/theneedle Open source project blog and support site http://opensource.newscloud.com http://support.newscloud.com Get the code – grab a fork on Github! http://github.com/newscloud/n2 Our past research http://newscloud.com/research Follow us on Twitter @newscloud Email me at jeff@newscloud.com