We are excited to announce today that Grant for the Web has awarded Distributed Media Lab (DML), an open web content distribution platform, a $2M grant.
As news media companies seek to diversify their business models with consumer based revenue streams, DML will use the grant funding to develop and launch an innovative reader revenue platform to support that growth for news publishers.
New DML platform capabilities will harness Web Monetization and the AMP framework to power distributed reader revenue across a network of participating publishers. This decentralized approach will empower publishers to harness the natural scalability of the open web.
“The news industry is in a state of fundamental economic transition. This has significant implications for the sustainability of our democracy. New technologies are required to power new business models that support journalism in the new medium of the web. We believe those technologies must be built on open standards. AMP and Web Monetization have emerged as new standards to support a new economic foundation for the news publishing industry.” David Gehring, CEO and co-founder of DML.
With funding from Grant for the Web, DML is building on Web Monetization and the AMP framework with a goal to encourage broader industry adoption and development toward a more sustainable news publishing industry.
“With the growth of the digital economy, news publishers face increasingly dramatic challenges. We are very excited about how DML will harness Web Monetization to bring to news publishers an innovative approach to reader revenue that supports the important work of journalism.” Chris Lawrence, Senior Program Manager, Grant for the Web
About Distributed Media Lab- DML is a content distribution platform for publishers and brands across web, email and social platforms. DML’s mission is to build technologies that power media business models to enable advertising and consumer revenue streams tailored to the decentralized (or post-destination) open web.
About Web Monetization- Web Monetization is a proposed API standard that allows websites to request a stream of very small payments (e.g. fractions of a cent) from a user. In exchange for payments from the user, websites can provide the user with a “premium” experience, such as allowing access to exclusive content, removing advertising, or even removing the need to log in to access content services.
About the AMP Framework- AMP is an open-source HTML framework that provides a straightforward way to create web pages that are fast, smooth-loading and prioritize the user-experience above all else. Technical leadership of the AMP project is delegated to the Technical Steering Committee by the OpenJS Cross Project Council (CPC) in accordance with the AMP Charter.
About Grant for the Web- Grant for the Web is a $100 million fund that enables content creators and software developers to adopt and advance Web Monetization and the Interledger Protocol: open-source tools for better, alternative online business models that benefit the public good. Grant for the Web is funded and led by Coil, working in collaboration with founding collaborators Mozilla and Creative Commons. GftW Charter.