

Persistence pays off in 'real-time' for Windy Citizen - brandnewlow
http://blogs.vocalo.org/feder/2010/06/persistence-pays-off-in-%E2%80%98real-time%E2%80%99-for-windy-citizen/26634

======
brandnewlow
Hey guys, I just received a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to spin
off our advertising program into a new online ad startup that is going to
reinvent display ads and make them stop sucking.

Link here: <http://nowspots.com/>

We've already gotten some great coverage from Mashable:
[http://mashable.com/2010/06/16/knight-foundation-
awards-2-74...](http://mashable.com/2010/06/16/knight-foundation-
awards-2-74-million-for-future-news-tools/)

Wall Street Journal: [http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/06/17/knight-news-
challe...](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/06/17/knight-news-challenge-
winners-take-home-274-million-in-grant-
awards/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

PBS: [http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/06/knight-announces-news-
cha...](http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/06/knight-announces-news-challenge-
winners-for-2010166.html)

Chicago Tribune:
[http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/06/wind...](http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/06/windycitizen-
brad-flora-wins-knight-news-challenge-grant-jobs-joann-genette-wbig-high-
dellios-ap.html)

And the Chicago Reader:
[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2010/06/16/goo...](http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2010/06/16/good-
knight-brad-flora-gets-250000-grant)

I want to say thanks to the folks on HN for your support and encouragement
over the last two years as I bootstrapped Windy Citizen and learned a ton
about what works and what doesn't in the online ad space. Now I'm going to
make a run at it.

We're going to be hiring (announcements coming soon), and there will be
several open source releases as part of this project, which will all be
announced on here.

If you've got questions about the Knight News Challenge, bootstrapping, or
anything else, ask away!

~~~
michael_dorfman
Congratulations, Brad! It looks like you are doing some great work.

(I posted an article about your winning the grant here yesterday, but it
didn't seem to get any traction.)

~~~
brandnewlow
Thanks so much! Perhaps I should have hacked Dustin's Posterous...

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kljensen
Duder who runs that is a super nice guy and has poured his heart into Windy
Citizen. Nice to see him win the Knight prize.

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shortformblog
Brad was a super-cool person the one time I met him in person. Glad to see him
succeed. WC is one of the best twists on the Digg/Reddit model I've seen. And
I would totally run his real-time ads on my site.

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jordo37
It's been fun watching Brad learn to hack as he rolls out WC. Best of luck
with the ads biz

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hnhasNOpwreset
Rock on!!

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ajkirwin
I'm quite sad that they passed over such great things as WikiLeaks for Yet
Another Ad Company.

~~~
frossie
Did WikiLeaks apply?

~~~
ajkirwin
I believe so, yes.

