The deal calls for the Santa Monica, Calif., company to create and maintain a new travel section for USAT's website called Travel Tips. The section, which debuted Wednesday, is filled with thousands of how-to articles created by Demand's editors and freelancers, the LAT says: "Using a combination of technology and humans, Demand generates 5,000 articles and videos a day, far more than any single media company can produce on its own. The company uses an algorithm to continuously sift through massive amounts of data from search engines to divine what people are interested in reading. The algorithm spits out popular keywords that are massaged by editors into headlines, then pumped into a database."The LAT continues: "An army of 7,000 freelancers taps into the database, which on any given day contains hundreds of thousands of topics. They are paid an average of $15 an article, or $20 for each video. Demand has a library of more than 1 million articles and 175,000 videos on topics as diverse as how to paint an Easter egg and treating hair loss."
USA Today doesn't pay for this content. Instead, it splits advertising revenue generated by the new section with Demand.
I peeked at the section yesterday, and immediately wondered about the value of adding what appears to be very generic stories, photos and videos that can easily be found elsewhere. Newspapers will survive by publishing exclusive content, because that's what readers will pay for. And that's critical as Gannett steps closer to lowering paywalls around its sites.
Yeah. This is what I want from one of the largest media outlets in the nation. Travel stories written by "journalists" making $15 per story.
ReplyDeleteTravel is costly and $15 wouldn't even cover the expense account of most legitimate travel writers. How ridiculous.
Maybe somebody could write an article about how to pack a suitcase in a short enough time to make $15 an article worthwhile. But they're not going to be able to write anything I'd want to read.
Just a guess here, but I'm pretty sure this move was generated to increase the amount of PV's inside of the Travel section...an area that USAT usually sells out of from the Advertising side of things.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the cost for USAT...a split of advertising, it doesn't seem like that bad of a move from my standpoint.
I don't care what they do on this one. The travel section of The Guardian is on my daily list of must reads. Gave up on USAT travel ions ago.
ReplyDeleteIt is absurd that USA Today would work with a company as shady as Demand Media and Richard Rosenblatt. Clearly, someone on Jeff Webber's team did NOT do their due diligence on this company.
ReplyDeleteThis is a desperate way of buying content from people who steal it from other writers.
Good job Hillkirk, Hunke, Webber. This is the way to outsource more of your content.
Let's see...First AP, then Content ONE and now Demand Media. For one thing, all these content generators are located through USA, so i guess that works.
Idiots!!!
This quote just shows how shallow the talent pool is, not just at Gannett or USAT, but in the print-obsessed industry.
ReplyDelete(snip) But Victoria Borton, USA Today's general manager for travel, explained the partnership to trade publication Advertising Age by saying, "We're not going to sit and write 4,000 'How to Travel With a Toddler' or 'How to Find the Best Airfare Deals' pieces, but that's the sort of thing people are searching the search engines for." (snip)
Well, damn, Victoria. That's right: Screw 'em! If that's the sort of thing those common folk are searching the googles and intertubes for, why they hell should you even dirty your high-browed talents? Better to pay somebody than risk being tainted, right?
What is more important than the readers? Oh, yeah ... it's all about what the editors and writers want. And I've known enough travel writers and editors at USAT to know that they'd rather write about someplace they can visit on an expense account, than what those pesky damned readers might really find useful.
1:03 -- I'm sure you're right that this is a move to increase hits, and it's as foolish as most things Gannett does. Throw up a bunch of low-quality crap for no other reason than to draw Web traffic.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is, people may well remember that they read those lousy travel stories on the USA Today Web site and decide that they don't want to rely on the brand for any other news ... even the well-written stuff that appears in the paper.
Since you don't make any money to speak of on the Web, it's foolish to tarnish your reputation just so you can brag about Internet traffic.
Awesome. Wonder if this is the kind of thing that persuaded Siradakis it was time to leave?
ReplyDeleteThis will go well with the Gannett "branding" initiative. Pretty soon people will be able to go, "Gannett. Oh yeah, you're the company that produced all those worthless travel tips I came across on the Web the other day. No thanks, I don't want to subscribe."
ReplyDeletethe good thing about this is that our fellowmen can gain an extra profit out of the articles or video that they have given.
ReplyDelete