About Me 0091: Making Money With Website

Popular financial news and commentary website Seeking Alpha seems to have a pretty sweet setup — the site has built up a large readership (40 to 45 million pageviews per month) with articles that are written for free. So the announcement that the site will start paying its contributors looks a bit odd — why start paying for something you were already getting for free?

The move seems especially risky since Seeking Alpha’s Premium Partnership Program will pay a rate of $10 per thousand pageviews. That means a big chunk of the money the site makes from each article will go to the writer. (On the other hand, Seeking Alpha founder and CEO David Jackson told me last week that the site charges its advertisers premium rates thanks to its high-quality audience.)

So why change things? Jackson said it’s because the pay model allows Seeking Alpha to reach a new set of writers. Until now, most contributors were financial advisors or other professionals who saw their articles as a way to build their reputation and attract new customers. But there’s a big pool of writers who have expertise in a specific financial subject but aren’t looking for customer leads (for example if they’re retired, or if they’ve built up knowledge as an individual investor). Those writers need a different incentive to contribute — namely, money.

The ultimate goal, Jackson said, is to become “the eBay of financial content, to put people in business who otherwise wouldn’t be in business.” Your average Seeking Alpha article receives between 2,500 and and 20,000 pageviews, he added — which means a payment of between $20 and $200. (The payments will be made quarterly, and to reduce the company’s overhead, you won’t get paid until you’re owed at least $100.) For some contributors, the payments will just represent an extra bit of spending money, but for others it could be a nice income.

Some of Seeking Alpha’s existing writers will switch to the new model, while others will not, Jackson said, because if you want to get paid, the site will require exclusive rights to the article.

One of the risks of the pay-per-pageview model is that it might encourage sensationalism for the sake of chasing traffic (and making more money). Obviously, the site wants to grow pageviews, but Jackson said he’ll be relying on its editorial team to act as a quality filter as the amount of submissions grows.

Seeking Alpha already has 4,000 registered contributors, Jackson said. The site’s investors include Benchmark Capital, Accel Partners, and DAG Ventures.

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BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]
Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

BigGov Claims Chevy's
Green Efforts "The Kind of Business Model That You Get When Leftists Take
Over." A January 13 post on Andrew Breitbart's blog Big Government
mocked Chevrolet's Carbon Reduction initiative, which focuses on "investing in
greenhouse gas-reducing projects...like wind farms, solar and energy efficiency,"
according to the initiative's website. [Chevycarbonreduction.com, accessed 1/14/11]

Including a video clip of a
recent ad for the Chevy Volt, the Big Government post
claimed:

There was a time when Chevy built
cars and trucks. The Corvette and Camaro were legendary sports cars, and the
Impala offered full size comfort [sic] a middle
class price. But that was before Change came to town. The brand that used
to compare itself to Baseball, Hot-Dogs, and Apple Pie is no longer content to
just make reliable vehicles, it is now as green as a wheatgrass and algae
smoothie.

For instance, in the following
commercial: Chevy isn't just building cars anymore, it's "investing" in
windmills, and planting trees.

[video clip]

This is the kind of business model that you get when Leftists take
over. Before 2008, GM just tried to make cars that people would buy, for a
little more money than they cost to build. Now, they have to plant a forest.
[Big Government, 1/13/11]

BigGov Claims GM
Using Taxpayer Money On Green Effort. The Big
Government post also
suggested that GM is using taxpayer money to "plant windmills and trees." From
the post:

It's for reasons like this that General Motors is never expected
to fully pay back the bailout money. According to the
Congressional Oversight Panel, Taxpayers will lose about 19 billion dollars on
the General Motors bailout.

That's a lot of green. You can't really blame General Motors. When
you have an extra 19 billion to play with, why not plant windmills and trees?
It seems like the corporate suites, are working on a bigger Buzz than the one
they hired to do the voice-over. A more rational voice might ask about the
forest that had to be cut down to print all that money. [Big Government, 1/13/11]

In Fact, Chevy's Initiatives Are Not Government Mandated, Do Not Use Taxpayer Money

Chevy Carbon Reduction Site: "The
Government Had Absolutely No Role In This" Project. On the Questions and
Answers section of Chevrolet's site about the green
initiative, Chevrolet states that the government "had absolutely no
role" in the project and that the company "is making this commitment
voluntarily." From the site:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com, accessed 1/14/11]

Chevy Site: "Funding For This
Initiative Comes From Existing Advertising Budgets." In response to the
question, "Is Chevy spending taxpayers' money on this initiative?" the website
lists the answer:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com,
accessed 1/14/11]

Chevy Site: Project To Cost An
Estimated $40 Million. The site also states that the projected cost of the
project is $40 million:

[ChevyCarbonReduction.com,
accessed 1/14/11]

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Making Money With Website

BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers

In Fact, Chevy's Initiatives Are Not Government Mandated, Do Not Use Taxpayer Money

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BigGov: Chevy's Green Efforts Due To "Leftists Tak[ing]
Over" And Are Funded By Taxpayers