Spot.us Even More Impressive Than On First Glance

It is no secret that I love startup Spot.us.  I met Dave as a fellow screener for the Knight News Challenge (really take a look at applying for next year!) and I was excited about his project.

I was reading a great article from the LA Times today (that almost hit the digg frontpage) and then read Dave’s response.

This really stuck out to me:

Anyone can take the code for Spot.Us and create their own version of it!

I tell people right now that the code isn’t ready to be used – but I think in a few months it’ll be stronger and I WANT people to take it and launch their own community funded reporting projects. I intend on expanding Spot.Us but would LOVE it if somebody beat me to their city.

Somehow I missed that the source for spot.us is being opened up as well.  Dave’s support of an open model is nothing short of impressive.

Dave- I’m putting some more money into funding stories.  I challenge those reading this to do the same.  We need to support projects like this, that give back in such monumental ways.