Can a centralized source provide all the specialized technical support and services a real web living news agency will need? Alternatively would Huffington Post and Techcrunch be willing to add to their tech team by paying for this service?

The only differentiators I can see are: "Lead generation: get tips from your readers automatically get sources for your stories find out what stories people want to hear about, before they know themselves! Collaborate with other journalists."

The other services (submit links, show ads) have questionable value. I have high hopes for a model like this though. I was looking for an open source model like a dedicated Wordpress though.