Good news from Patch-land?

Bloomberg reports they're planning on hiring 800 editorial staffers, or in the world of AOL, "content providers." I happen to think this company stinks for reasons I and others have expressed in other threads. But this is good news if it's true.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/aol-to-add-800-news-employees-to-revive-sales-growth-after-huffington-deal.html

 

Yo Tucson, I'm curious as to why you think Patch "stinks." Up front, please don't get defensive at my question. I'm asking because I haven't seen your reasons in other threads, we have a Patch showing up in my hometown, and I know nothing about it. What's the word?

 

I think Tucson was referring to AOL in general

 

I think it's great. Grab AOL's money and run while it's there for the taking.

Just be sure to bank half your paycheck.

 

What she said. Also make sure you're eligible for unemployment when they let you go.

A year ago we were all impressed with all of the people Fanhouse was hiring.

 

The hiring stopped last fall just before it got to my neck of the woods in Rhode Island, but in the past week I've seen about 10 LEs and an ME job pop up for New Hampshire - virgin territory.

 

True, not a big AOL fan. I think they lack vision, and have a propensity for promoting people with bad ideas. The Patch business model as it stands now doesn't make sense, although I assume their plan is to eventually become a user-generated local site. My experience dealing with Patch editors has been mixed. Many haven't been shooting straight with me, an inevitable consequence of Patch's PR-driven culture, I think.

 

Well they need to sell ads to make this work. All I've seen on our local sites is little teeny ads on the top right of the page. I'm guessing that's not enough to justify the 40K salaries of the editors there.

To the previous question about what Patch is like, it ultimately depends on who the editors wind up being in your region.

Some darn good ones exist. Others have limited journalistic experience, report false information and seem to have no clue what they are doing.

I'll reiterate what I've said many times before about Patch: I sincerely hope this works and AOL puts more journalists to work. But I couldn't be more pessimistic about their outlook.

 

The operation is destined to fail. Any business plan that consists of opening a bunch of locations all at once, solely based on the optimism from other sites, is a bad one.

 

I don't know anyone who goes to Patch on purpose. If you can't get people to your sites, you can't sell ads. Reductio ad absurdum.

 

Well, if you don't know anyone who goes there, then I guess that's all they need. Somebody forward this information to the powers that be at Patch immediately! They should just shut down right now!