Yahoo -- Will This Work?

We use the program Yahoo will be employing. I even was part of the testing.
Moddy is right. It is a tool -- and very specifically a flagging tool -- and not an editor.

 

I would disagree.

The big advantage you have is that with the Yahoo name and affiliation on your site, you will show up in search a lot higher and faster. Part of any search algorithm is how many inbound links you have, and with your stuff on Yahoo, that will increase exponentially.

My youth sports blog was on True/Slant (what became the basis for Forbes' blogging network, after thec company bought it) for more than a year. I didn't quit my day job, but at least what I was writing for free got me $150-500 per month, got me thousands more readers than I had as an independent, and put me in contact with some lovely and talented people all over the globe who I would have otherwise never met.

I am doing the blog again independently since Forbes shut down True/Slant and jettisoned almost all the writers. (I'm told some, including myself, could be brought back, but I'm not holding my breath). And I'm back to not getting paid, and the much lower numbers I had before True/Slant. Some of that is also my more infrequent blogging since being let go. Of course, I'm not going to get paid more for more unique visits, so the inspiration, shall we say, has dried up a little.

I have no regrets about my True/Slant experience. I presume Yahoo is operating on a somewhat similar model. Would you quit your day job over it? No. But for someone with ambition, it can provide a platform, an audience, and a few shekels.

 

It will be great like Bleacher Report, which makes me feel tricked whenever I end up there by following a link.

 

I like it. (Even though I still do some things at B/R)

 

I hate Bleacher Report and also get annoyed when a link leads me there. It's somehow worse than Examiner.com, Associated Content and whatever other garbage that has a number in the headline that Yahoo puts on its home page ("13 Secrets your Hotel Maid Doesn't Want you to Know," et alii). Everything I've accidentally read on Bleacher Report is just loser fanboy shit. I'm sure there are a handful of sentient, competent individuals on Bleacher Report, but I've yet to see it.

 

Nothing I hate more than googling sports team, term or news item and getting the a bunch of returns for Bleacher Report. I refuse to read them because I know it is crap. And if I wanted crap opinions on sports I would read my Facebook feed.

 

Yahoo!, obviously, considers itself enough of a brand-name news source to pull this off. And, it probably is.

What average reader -- that isn't us, remember -- is going to know the difference between a legitimate, perhaps big-name Yahoo! staff writer, and some unknown, unrecognized contributor? And, what's more, who's going to care?

If they're all under the same banner, the line is going to be so blurred, as cranberry said, that it's not going to be recognized by anyone not truly in the know.

 

Couple of things:

I do a lot of side work for Demand (yes, that's me helping end journalism as we know it), and Moddy, unless it's different, the plagiarism checkers are much more forgiving than you're describing. They catch a lot, but not to the degree you say. And let me tell you, it's tough: With Demand, you might get "Blackheads on Your Ears" and "How to Get Rid of Blackheads on Your Ears" and try writing THAT two completely different ways.

Bleacher Report has a lot of issues, but they're better than they used to be and have some decent contributors.

And everything I've read is that Yahoo WILL be using editors on a lot of this copy, although how they're going to do 3,000 stories a day with any care, I have no idea. Demand, on the other hand, has thousands of freelance editors who have, as you'd expect, a wide range of abilities. But every piece of that copy gets read in some fashion. So 21, all I'm saying is that it's not completely "unreviewed, unedited, unvetted" and not every writer is "unknown and unaccountable" in these kinds of things.

Is it edited or written as well as at a newspaper in the old days? Um, no.

 

As someone else pointed out, what I (or we on this website) would do isn't too relevant. I'm asking about the news-consuming public.

The brand-name news sources that already exist are cutting back.

I'm just asking if it will catch on.

 

See, I don't think we, being the people who do what we do, like any of this much and shouldn't.

But these business models are working (at least for now, and yes, their longevity is debatable) and money is being made and, not incidentally, people are being paid (some would say slave wages) for the work.

But returning to the middle point: Money is being made, so people are reading this, um, copy.

 

Not on Google search, it won't.

Honestly, who still uses Yahoo search? It's closer on the ladder to Bing than it is to Google these days. (Or AltaVista -- which, god bless it, is still around. Who knew?)