Contributors to Helium, the citizen-journalism/amateur writing site, have broken the $1 million mark for total earnings.

The site has 150,000 members earn cash from upfront payments and as part of a revenue share.

“We have about 10,000 who have proven to be talented writers. This is the group that are earning on our site,” Mark Ranalli, CEO of Helium, told Journalism.co.uk.

“Some of our best writers are making $5,000 per year already, and these sums continue to climb as the site continues to grow.

“This milestone represents definitive proof that there is a real market for writers to be compensated for their work online. In the midst of increasing volatility in the traditional media industry, Helium is attracting thousands of publishers and connecting them with high quality subject matter experts on a regular basis,” added Ranalli in a press release.

Helium already has a technology partnership set up with Hearst Newspapers and its members are now allowed access to The Society of Professional Journalists.

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Agreement will see Hearst titles use Helium’s ’social publishing platform’ for reader comments and commissioning local content from Helium contributors.

Full release at this link…

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Citizen journalism site Helium.com has secured $17millon in funding. According to a press release from businesswire.com, the financial backing is from an international group of investors led by Signature Capital LLC.

“Helium‘s unique platforms put the power of citizen engagement behind media publications, enabling them to engage readers in a way that will help grow audiences and increase reader loyalty,“ said Bill Turner, principal of Signature Capital, in the release.

“With Helium.com, we are bringing our financial resources to further accelerate this growth in citizen journalism, and to support Helium‘s objectives towards providing solutions to newspapers at a time when budgets are shrinking and ad revenues are down.“

The site currently has a community of over 150,000 writers covering subjects from politics to pets and sport to science. The website’s terms have recently been changed to promote higher quality content. The changes include allowing ’starred writers’ to receive payment upfront for new articles.

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