[brandnewlow]

I told a bunch of journalism friends about this over beers tonight. A few of them were really depressed by this.

One of them is actually on the margins of it. He just started writing for an AOL site and said that this is the direction they're going to start going with for their weblogs inc. sites. He gets a list of topics culled from Google Zietgeist and other sources that his editor wants him to write short posts about for $50/pop. They don't really care what he writes so long as they have content available on the topics that people are searching for right now.

This is the world that's been built.

[petercooper]

While the lack of a strong editorial voice can be a negative, the pay surely isn't. As you note, $50 a pop for "short posts." For someone who's skilled in an area (as most Weblogs Inc writers were, at least) $50 to put out a 300-400 word post in 30 minutes or so is pretty good pay.

[chuck_taylor]

Word count is not an indication of the effort involved. Itg's not merely a matter of typing in words like a monkey. You have to know about which you write. The more you know, likely the more time it took you to learn it. Time is money, words are just words.

[petercooper]

Word count is not an indication of the effort involved.

If it's for writing small news bits, it can be. Let's say you're a total expert with using GMail and you have to write a couple of posts linking to GMail news, the occasional tip, etc, each day - you can probably bash short posts out in no time.

You have the many hundreds of hours invested in actually become the expert in the first place, but I doubt anyone becomes an expert so they can write $50 a pop pieces - so that cash is extra value, not a payback for the time you spent learning (as is the case with a professional's fees).

[chuck_taylor]

Well, OK, but that's an awfully narrow example. What happens when you are asked, or want, to write of something about which you know only a little? Or something you sort of know well but which requires a modest degree of fact-checking and verification?

Put another way, how much do you expect to earn per hour for this sort of work? How long does it take you to write an informative 300 words?

[thetrumanshow]

Yes, but $50 in exchange for 300-400 words and a small slice of your credibility isn't a good trade.

However, if they don't have to put their names on the article then you're right, it is a good deal.

[petercooper]

It depends if they're writing crap that's below their station. If you're getting a heavy investigative journalist to pump out this stuff, it could hurt their credibility. If it's just a niche expert pumping out small news pieces that have some small insight behind it, I can't see how it could hurt.