[ricardobeat]

Outsource your blog today! Curated top trending topics, SEO optimized, ready to go viral and customized to your audience.

This is the kind of crap I wish would disappear from the web. At least Google is trying to do it's part. I also think a company blog is not the place for this kind of arbitrage, I see it often on random companies websites and it shows: instead of engaging the audience, the post listing looks like a pyramid marketing scheme.

[rbucks]

Let me take the discussion up a level.

There's huge demand for great writing, that's been made clear in the comments (and we see this every day at Scripted HQ).

There are millions of underemployed professionals in this country, thousands of whom are exceptional writers.

Scripted bridges the two, allowing businesses to get great writing (not just blog posts, also white papers, landing pages, status updates, case studies, and product descriptions) by someone who actually knows the industry.

I totally understand the skepticism surrounding ghostwriting, but it's not so different than hiring a PR agency or marketing firm. We're just making these services available to any business a la carte, and using a distributed workforce of real American professionals.

Where's the scheming in that?

[nathan_long]

The problem is that "great writing", in this context, is business owners writing something that being a business owner qualifies them to write.

How is an outsourced writer going to draw on someone else's experiences?

A blog written from real experience may be valuable. A blog pretending to be written from real experience is worse that worthless for the readers.

[rbucks]

In most cases, we'll take an outline from a business owner along with a style guide they produced or had produced by their agency, and choose a writer as close as possible to their industry. You can't fake insider knowledge, but you can transfer the details and have a great writer build in the details.

Maybe a better analogy is like a head chef and his souz-chefs. Our clients create the recipe, but our writers prepare the dish.

[noelwelsh]

Authenticity is very ill-defined (just ask any hipster). What makes an authentic company blog in your mind? Does it have to written by an employee of the company? What if it the company is entirely outsourced (except for the owners, obviously)? Does that mean the owners must write it? What if the owners aren't any good at writing? Can they not hire someone to do this job for them? Let's say we're talking about a software company, and all development is outsourced. Is the product now inauthentic? If not, what's the difference between a blog and the product?

[ricardobeat]

Interesting and insightful blog posts are usually written by someone with intimate knowledge of some part of the business, be it an outsourced developer, a founder or even a marketing intern. The proximity matters. That knowledge is not going to be transferred over a five input form.

[scott_meade]

One type of authenticity speaks to origin an item. Whether it be a painting, writing, or any other work, when a work's origin is in doubt, it can be said to be lacking authenticity. The inauthentic part of ghostwriting is that the name of the author on the content is not the person who created the content.

[noelwelsh]

There is no requirement that the authors aren't credited. To quote another comment in this thread by someone from Scripted

  Yup. Which is why many of our clients give byline to our writers!

I agree that if the author isn't credited the setup is a bit dubious.

[zalew]

They could pair up with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIwH7ptHCWc (if it wasn't a joke)

[winsmart]

Whoa buddy, sounds like you're on your high horse in your ivory tower. Must be lonely up there!

[ricardobeat]

Yes, my comment was a bit harsh, but that's the gist of my opinion, sometimes blunt comments make for better discussion than candy-coated ones. Plus I'm a little annoyed by promotional posts on HN...

[winsmart]

So do I, and I can be harsh too. You are not alone my friend.