An area like this probably requires a large initial investment to give journalists who do join some job security while the site looks to build up readership.
I would love to pay out of investment, but we don't have it, so I'm not sure what we can do there.
You could probably pick up solid but cheap freelancers to join in (one of the magazine the publisher owns encourages community generated content and quite a few tech writers got a start through it) simply because it would mean increased output for them (not being at capacity like super-pro writers generally are) and hence more money.
But it's so so hard to compete with what the print mags would pay. We talked to a few freelancers who said they wanted at least 50% of what they would get for print - but twice the uptake (i.e. twice as many articles). That's hundreds of dollars per article you have to shell out for a few months before advertising picks up to cover it.
I think it's going to be tough to do this.
I saw they were promising payments, elsewhere, of 30-70K. That is "serious writer" territory and they aren't going to get any of them.
It was the ultimate reason I haven't emailed what looks like an interesting idea - 70K is such a ludicrous promise it sounds like they barely know the talent pool :(
(though maybe US journalism works like that, I dont know)
Do email us, you sound interesting. I'm paul [at] newslabs.com or paul.biggar [at] gmail.com.
I'll drop an email when I get chance.