A citizen journalists’ website which enjoyed a traffic upsurge during last month’s riots has been nominated for an award worth £10,000.

BlottR, a hyperlocal site which sees citizen journalists upload their own stories and headlines, in the running for Smarta 100 award.

The site has been nominated for the competition which lists ‘the most resourceful, original, exciting and disruptive small businesses in the UK.’

The user generated online news service claims to be ‘powered by users who are in the right place at the right time, nearly always breaks stories first, often hours before the mainstream services.’

Founder Adam Baker said they were the only journalism company to have been nominated in the competition.

Said Adam: “For us being seen as innovative is really important for us. We would be pleased to have that kind of recognition, it is way more valuable than the money. That’s not what’s getting us excited.”

The site breaks news from seven cities and operates a ‘write to earn’ scheme that allows citizen journalists to earn cash per multiple of page impressions.

Adam added: “The riots were phenomenal for us. We were ranked as the fourth most popular site in the UK. We were able to uncover lots of hyperlocal coverage.”

The site invites people to report, collaborate and discover breaking news as it happens. It covers London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leicester and Leeds, with other locations, including France, set to be added.

It also has a technology platform called NewsPoint which allows other media owners to plug in to the BlottR network.

Four publishers have been signed up since the start of August and it enables them to use BlottR as a platform for news content.

The top prize in the competition is £10,000 and sees the winning company named as 02 Smarta 100 Business of the Year.