Citizen Journalism: Will Asia Get the Signal?

Last week, I read about Signal, an iPhone app designed to facilitate citizen journalism, on Mashable. I don’t have an iPhone, but it sounded pretty cool, so I sent the team an email with some questions about its Asia plans, and Mark Malkoun, the man behind Signal, replied.

Basically, the app allows users to share pictures and captions instantly, and geotagged. The idea is to share interesting news stories, and users can also add to local stories that have already been posted if they’re in the same location. Malkoun described it thusly: “As a viewer you can see everything happening in any location of the world sorted by importance or time. If you happen to see something happening nearby within the app, you could also contribute by adding pictures yourself.”

I asked him about the inspiration for this app, and whether he was hoping it might have an impact on the freedom of information in countries where the press isn’t entirely free. Malkoun told me: “The creation of this app was definitely inspired by the Arab spring, and more importantly from a personal desire to get news directly from the people or the source in a geographically organized interface.”

Can we expect Signal in Asia anytime soon? At present, the app works worldwide, but it hasn’t been translated into any Asian languages yet. Malkoun said that was just a matter of time, though. “Asia is a huge market and targeting that market is a top priority for us.” I asked Malkoun specifically about China, and how he thought the app might be received given the restrictive media climate here:

We did not have any complaints from any government in the world so far even though we had a lot of press releases, and we hope it will stay that way…If a problem occurs, we will have to deal with it as it happens as we cannot predict.

It certainly seems like the kind of app that the Chinese government in particular wouldn’t be too excited about — potentially as powerful as Weibo but without the censorship — but of course, without a Chinese localized version, any conflict with the Chinese government is still a long way away. English speakers with iPhones should be able to try the app out and use it anywhere in the world as soon as it launches. And Android users, never fear, an Android version of Signal should be coming soon, too. Malkoun told me: “An Android version is definitely something we want to do.”