German newspaper, Bild, going to town with reader-reporter picture service

Link: Readers are the new paparazzi – Technology – International Herald Tribune.

Bild’s “Leser-Reporter” feature, introduced during the World Cup, brought its readership daily shots of celebrities, politicians and soccer stars – taken from the cellphone cameras of quick-thinking passers-by. The photos were either uploaded onto the Bild home page or sent as e-mail attachments or multimedia messages to a special number the tabloid set up. 

The paper paid €500 to €1,000, or $638 to $1,270, for photos printed in the Reader-Reporter pages, and by the end of the World Cup soccer tournament, as many as 1,000 photos were streaming in daily.

How long will it be before a UK newspaper sets up a ‘reader-reporter’ page? Not long I hope.