Phillip Trippenback, who got his start as a reporter for the CBC, is now the editor-in-chief of Citizenside, a France-based social network that aims to connect citizen journalists and photographers to global media outlets.

According to Citizenside’s website, “[i]f you have an interesting news-related image or video, Citizenside will contact media outlets on your behalf and offers you a much higher percentage of the sales prices than those offered by traditional agencies (up to 75%).”

Images contributed to Citizenside are licensed to the worldwide media via the Agence France-Presse’s Image Forum, which has 7,000 clients worldwide.

In November 2007, Agence France Press became a shareholder in the Citizenside agency (formerly Scooplive). The same year, primary shareholder and ex-CEO of France Television, Xavier Gouyou-Beauchamps, became the president of Citizenside.

Trippenbach has developed a number of interactive journalism projects for UK broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 4.