I Supported @acarvin's #Egypt Coverage

Wanna support my #egypt coverage? Pls donate to your NPR station http://n.pr/b7N0RZ then tweet amount & station w/ tag #gave4andy. Pls RT!less than a minute ago via TweetDeckAndy Carvin
acarvin

I supported @acarvin's #egypt coverage w/a $1,200 donation to @WBUR, my NPR station http://n.pr/b7N0RZ #gave4andy. Pls RT!less than a minute ago via Tweetie for MacSteve Garfield
stevegarfield

Has Andy Carvin found the future of fundraising by using his personal brand to generate donations for NPR?

“I’m a friend of Andy, and found myself continuously going back to his Twitter stream over the past few weeks to find out what was happening in Egypt,” Garfield said via e-mail. “I wanted to support NPR in some way for letting Andy explore this new way of reporting.” Since the donation, he’s gotten a tweet, a direct message, and a phone call from WBUR thanking him for his support.

Andy's appeal worked because it was personal and he only asked once in 18 days. If he tweeted 400 times a day for 18 days, that would be 7,200 tweets, with just one asking for a donation. That's a good ratio. :-)

#gave4andy: Andy Carvin and the ad hoc pledge drive:

Carvin’s work cultivating sources and sharing their updates has turned curation into an art form, and it’s provided a hint of what news can look like in an increasingly networked media environment. “It really has stood out as an alternative model of news,” says Kinsey Wilson, NPR’s senior vice president and general manager of digital media. It’s also led to earnest talk of a Pulitzer for social media curation (with Carvin, of course, as the prize’s first recipient) and to equally earnest discussions, among Jeff Jarvis and others, of how to translate Carvin’s curatorial prowess into a full-fledged business model.

Curating the Revolution: Building a Real-Time News Feed About Egypt:

PC: Do you think curation is a new type, or approach to journalism?

AC: I think curation has always been a part of journalism; we just didn't call it that. Think of the word "media." It's about being in the middle, between the story and the public. The job of a reporter is to capture the most important elements to tell a story, and then go ahead and tell it. Watch any breaking news story on TV and you'll see curation going on. They'll quote sources, pull up clips from wherever, pass along info from pundits, etc. So curation itself isn't new; it's just the way that some of us are doing it online that's fairly new. The tools have evolved, but the goal of capturing a story and turning people's attention to it isn't.

Thanks Andy, and thanks to NPR for giving Andy the freedom to tell Egypt's story.

More:

Interview with My heart's in accara's Ethan Zuckerman: Interview with Andy Carvin on curating Twitter to watch Tunisia, Egypt

Media Bullseye with Jen Zingsheim and Bryan Person: Radio Roundtable: Curating content from Egypt, “gaming” social scores, and Groupon’s Super Bowl miss