zenpundit.com

Doing some site maintenance, working on an IO post and attending to misc. blog related details. More later today.

“If you build it, they will come…”

A start-up called Creative Weblogging  is attempting to build a stable of  business/finance/tech bloggers from scratch by paying unknowns a modest but not unattractive sum ($ 84 -140/ month) for steady posting.  In fact, they offer a “Pro Blogger Compensation Package” of sorts:

Pro Blogger Compensation Package:

• Monthly compensation: $84-140 (US) – paid via PayPal or Moneybookers
• 3-5 posts per week are required, min. of 70 words each.
• Traffic bonuses for aggressively growing traffic are available.
• Access to our vibrant community discussion group with 80+ bloggers, where you can share tips and network.
• We take care of all the technology with an advanced blogging platform.
• We also provide marketing support.
• Virtual shares program: blog with us for a year and you can earn virtual shares in the company.

Hmmmm…..Do “virtual shares” pay real dividends? 

Kind of interesting. Where Newsvine tried relying upon an ego-driven reputation management economy to gain free content, these folks are betting on actually sharing some of the wealth with creators will assemble a social network that can be commoditized.  As most bloggers produce inane drivel, especially when they are new to the game, the payment is far more than the labor is worth – until they find a blogger who can pull in hundreds of thousands of hits a week. Four of five of them should pay the bills for all the failures.

Presumably their business model is some kind of targeted RSS feed subscription marketing to justify ad revenues and later by hyping products by raising their status in the attention economy, assuming the network ever commands that kind of traffic leverage. I suspect the company retains intellectual property rights to what their bloggers write but I could be wrong. Bears watching as an experiment in the evolution of Web 2.0.

( Hat tip to Complexity and Social Networks Blog)

I think I’m over the worst of my recent time crunch. In any event, I thought I’d put some effort into the blog tonight. Times like this, I wish Zenpundit was a group blog.

Pardon my slow posting, I have a couple of high priority projects colliding with a temporary but fierce squeeze on my free time. Some good things in the works that will be up in a couple of days. Short posts until then.

A  surprise Valentine’s Day Gift from Mrs. Zenpundit to better suport my humble blogging efforts ( along with facilitating several graphics-rich gaming platforms that were stressing out my aging 1 gig PC). Currently transferring a multitude of files and reloading programs. Will return to normal blogging on Friday.