VillageSoup recently announced that after a considerable amount of work, it has reached its grant goal and has now released the community-network publishing system as an open-source tool free to the public.

This software allows companies with some technical know-how and resources to create community networks online in an all-in-one platform at no cost. When the Knight Foundation first awarded the grant, the goal was to “encourage greater citizen news experimentation by reducing upfront costs for new sites and by helping them reach profitability quicker”.

As part of this effort, VillageSoup will also soon release enterprise technology to media companies for a fee — with full customization and support. It will first be launching the new platform on its own sites and current partners, and then making it available for new partners. Each partner will become part of “VillageSoup Common,” a group that will collaborate on future product and feature enhancements, share best practices and more.

VillageSoup launched in 1996 as a community Web site in Knox County, Maine. The site was designed to allow a free exchange of ideas and comments from community members, business members, and journalists alike. Created by Richard Anderson, the site intends to be the “community town square,” built on three main activities: Learn, Share, and Shop.

In the Learn area, journalists from VillageSoup and other media contribute their content to the site. In the Share area, members of the community create forums, blogs, comment on stories and other items and share their perspectives, adding rich content to the site. They are allowed to post items directly to the site without moderation, however they register for the site with their verified real names, encouraging positive interactions. The Shop area features a business directory and business members are allowed to post offers, news items and more, and see directly how many “reads” all of their items receive. They can interact directly with readers and build relationships that go beyond traditional advertising offerings.

User-generated content, or UGC, is always a topic of debate among media companies. Some believe that allowing users to post content directly to the Web will “damage their brand,” where others, like VillageSoup, believe it’s a core part of the community experience. “Learn, Share, Shop is like a three-legged stool,” COO Ron Belyea explained. “Without one of the legs, the community vision falls down. There’s no way to do it half-way.”

The Knight foundation agreed when it awarded the grant and in their support of VillageSoup’s efforts. Gary Kebbel, journalism program director for the Knight foundation said “the barriers to joining the digital conversation are falling.” Richard Anderson, owner and creator of VillageSoup added “The most important philosophical component of the Soup’s approach is allowing citizens and business owners to post their news and information alongside that of the professional journalists. And all of these postings appear instantly, unfettered and unfiltered, free to anyone. No fences, no walls.”

But VillageSoup is more than just a new option for a platform provider or content management system, it is a business model. It is designed to do more than just power a Web site, it also powers the print products as well. In fact, while VillageSoup started as a Web company, they started their newspapers years later to offer another tool for their advertisers to reach the community, not a small feat in a small community with two other established newspaper companies and several publications. Since then, VillageSoup has grown in circulation and audience steadily, and also acquired their main competitor Courier Publications which owned several papers established for hundreds of years. The business model premise is very different than traditional media companies, built on the following key factors:

• Community content means the entire community: businesses, citizens, and journalists
• While print was built on generating high revenue from a few advertisers, to succeed online appeal to many more smaller, mid-sized and larger advertisers with lower cost solutions. Volume is key, and allowing them to market directly to consumers and build relationships with them is a critical success factor
• Web-first publishing model. The print products are a key to success, but do not drive schedules. Content is online immediately, and the papers contain content from citizens and businesses as well as the journalists
• Efficiencies in cost and scale. Rather than buying expensive editorial, advertising and pagination infrastructure in addition to a Web platform, the VillageSoup system powers both print and online in an efficient software package

To learn more about the VillageSoup vision and the community network publishing system, read the full VillageSoup announcement here.