Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, announced this morning that he’s closing down his Twitter client Ginx early next year and instead focusing on an online local news project. We reviewed a “private pre-alpha” version of Ginx in February and called it a dud. Ginx had some nice ideas but wasn’t terribly innovative and it’s finest points have now been reproduced in Twitter’s own Lists.
Little is known yet about Peer News, Omidyar’s next project, but an editor is being sought for hire. The project will begin in Hawaii, where Omidyar lives, but is intended to rock the journalist world.
The company’s About page currently reads:
We’re a small, fast-moving entrepreneurial team dedicated to bringing civic affairs journalism and analysis to our community in a commercially sustainable way. We combine our social media and online community experience with a passion for journalism in the public interest.
It’s sad to see a project be closed, but there’s a lot to be said for failing fast and moving on to other ideas. We look forward to seeing what form this next idea takes.
Media innovator Dan Gillmor says he doesn’t know any of the details about the new project but thinks this is a particularly important project to follow because of its emphasis on making local news commercially sustainable instead of operating as a non-profit.
Omidyar has already invested in a variety of news-related companies, including Digg, FM Publishing, Seesmic and Wikia.
