DISQUS

Mathew Ingram · 2 years ago

I think it's a great idea. The Telegraph in the UK did the same thing back in April, which I wrote about here

Tish Grier · 2 years ago

Two things you didn't ask, Scott, is if the commenters-turned-bloggers would be given any sort of compensation...and who gets to keep the rights...

Many high-profile companies have jumped on the idea that people are willing to give their opinions for free--and are jumping on the bandwagon to ask key bloggers to "contribute" to their projects. They promise "traffic"--which is like getting paid in copies...

But why should I write a post, have a wordcount, put up with the crap of having an editor kick it back to me for a re-write, re-write it and NOT receive any compensation...

You also didn't ask who will retain the rights to posts on Huffington. Another aspect of all this is that many of these publishing concerns that are actively soiciting for contributions are also asking that they hold the contributions exclsively and in perpetuity. No re-publishing on your own blog, nor taking that work, polishing it up better, and re-publishing it for money...

Comments are one thing--but being asked to "contribute" for no pay, and for the loss of rights over one's own words, which is what happens in lots of instances similar to Huffington's--isn't worth the promise of "traffic." I am curious to know if Huffington plans to piggyback on this now common policy of other companies.

(note: the three projects I've blogged for on a contract basis have compensated me and I've kept rights. The only one who didn'tcompensate, and kept rights, was Huffington, which I contributed to last summer. you can google and find the post.)

Scott Karp · 2 years ago

@Tish

All excellent points. I've thought a lot about this with regards to Publishing 2.0's syndication relationships with Seeking Alpha and Digital Media Wire.

I think it's less of an issue of a right or a wrong way to structure these arrangements, i.e. it's wrong if it's uncompensated or it's wrong if the publication retains the rights.

Rather, the key is for the blogger/writer to understand fully the nature of relationship and be able to make an eyes-open decision about whether the value exchange is fair.

Blogging on Huffington Post is very high profile and can help build a writer's reputation. If someone values cash compensation and/or republication rights more than the intangible reputation enhancement, then they can make the decision to look elsewhere -- and that would be a perfectly rational decision.

It's all supply and demand -- if the Huffington Post finds they can't get some of the bloggers they want without cash compensation, then they will have to consider paying. So far they have been able to get top names and talent to blog largely without cash-based value exchange. Conversely, if a writer finds they publications that pay aren't as high profile as those that don't, they will have to choose what's more important.

The market for talent is developing and will mature over time, and that's a good thing.

Craig Stoltz · 2 years ago

I think it's time to think of a new name for "journalists." If you look at it etymologically, it means "one who journals," which is to say records persona thoughts, external observations, etc. This does not capture Huff's idea of "reporting" (central to many practical IDs of journalism), nor does it capture those who work with media other than words on a screen. I have nothing to propose at this point--contenteurs?--but I think it's a good time to launch an effort. Crowdsourced, of course.

Scott Karp · 2 years ago

@Craig

There's certainly potential to coin a new term, but there are certain risks, e.g. you end up with something clunky "blog" or you only get partial adoption of the new term which leads to more fragmentation and more walls between people who are all doing different forms of the same thing.

I'm a believer in not throwing out words, because they are tough little symbols, capable of evolving, e.g. "computer," "phone." I'd love to evolve the term "journalist" to be meaningful to a much larger group, rather than convincing those who are still strongly attached to "journalist" to switch to something else.

Howard Weaver · 2 years ago

At my first newspaper job the bylines called us "staff writer." I objected (to no avail), preferring to be called "reporter."

I was right then. And now.

Anil · 2 years ago

Great interview, Scott. I think ti's interesting that HP is promoting their efforts in this regard so well. We built this kind of community feature into Movable Type just so communities like Huffington Post (which uses MT) could do these sorts of things that encourage positive contributions.

John McDaniel · 2 years ago

One wonders if this will bring any added diversity to HuffPo given that the net is largely male, white, and relatively affluent. I happen to think more diversity would be a good think, but I'm not terribly optimistic. A Neilsen Net Ratings report stated that "The overall unique audience to the top 10 online newspapers skewed male, with 60 percent men and 40 percent women. Among newspaper blog pages, this skew intensified, with 66 percent men and 34 percent women." Neilsen expects the gap to widen. A tally of The Huffington Post’s blog posts from July 30th and July 31st 2007 reveals that 69% of all blog posts (91 of 131) were by male writers with 79% of all posts tagged "Politics" and 89% of all posts tagged "Business" by men. If you're curious about color lines, you can judge the crowd for yourself (thanks to HP attaching photos to all posts) at this link: http://noteasilyamused.com/img/huffpo_bloggers.jpg

bruski89 · 2 years ago

Seems like a good idea to open up the floor to your fans. It would also be helpful in increasing reader subscription to your website since you are offering them something in return for their loyalty to your blog.

bbrian017 · 1 year ago

Bloggers are always looking for something in return and this could be the way to give that something back. Thanks for sharing man!

Hideo Kobe · 1 year ago

Andy Warhol correctly predicted that gossip will be the next artform. The question becomes, will the internet encourage or discourage the dissemination of gossip (including misinformation). When internet newspapers talk about relying on millions of contributors they rarely talk about hiring 100,000 city editors to check the facts of the piece. Unless and until that happens, I believe even the Huffington Post's of the virtual world should avoid the word "newspaper" because newspapers they are not.

J. Teel · 12 months ago

The problem with this system is that the masses nominate the bloggers - which, as one post commented- leads to a male, white skewing in voices. In most online communities dissenting voices of a certain type are often shunned. I find this particularly prevalent when feminist women question the sexism, (or racism), inherent in a liberal discussion dominated by white men. Some white men will be loathe to favorably vote for the dissenting voice's comment, especially if they have been called out for their sexism. This further enforces the status quo, even amongst left leaning communities. This needs to be addressed for a fair blogging community to be established.

I find a similar problem with online reviews on amazon.com. I write quite a few customer reviews, and Amazon uses a similar system as Huffington Post to nominate popular reviewers (those with the most useful votes) to various titles like "Vine Reviewer".

I've noticed, quite clearly, that what garners the most useful votes for a review is not the content, but if your review is positive and not negative. No matter how well written, I will always get more useful votes if I said I liked the book or movie. Critiques are never as popular as supportive, fluffy reviews. This leads to people who like everything and gush about everything in a review to garner the most useful review votes.

These systems are obviously flawed, and valid critique sinks to the bottom...

Gareth O' Neill · 5 months ago

There will always be people who are sceptical of new ideas but I think fair play to Huffington Post for embracing web 2.0. Some people don't care about being paid, they just want their voice heard. So if they want to talk and have interesting things to say then let them evangelise your site and become a blogger for you.

Other news sites like Manchester Evening News in the UK have a high activity rate in terms of comments, so it should take note of what Huffington Post is doing. In times like this when social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook are becoming just as important than the traditional marketing avenues then the thing to do is to embrace it.

Nice work Huffington Post!

Ronald Redito · 4 months ago

Some commenters are just looking for a backlink to their site. So other blog owners treat them as spam. But they have to realize that commenting is a give and take relationship. Blog owner's increase in readership and increase in the search engine ranking at the same time giving backlinks to the commenter's blog or site that he/she is promoting.

75revenuesharingforum · 4 months ago

This sounds like a great idea!

ben12345 · 3 months ago

I thinkit's a great idea, but it definitely brings into play major issues of moderation and fairness.