A 'middle man' for grassroots journalism?

Over the past few months, banner ads for Associated Content — a blog-style website that touts itself as “The People’s Media Company” — have been circulating on a wide variety of journalism-related websites and blogs.

What was Associated Content up to? Was it trying to be a new media outlet like the Huffington Post? A MySpace for the literary set? A new kind of Digg/Newsvine/Reddit/Furl/Fark/etc.? Unlike other “citizen journalism”/user-generated content sites, AC appeared to be paying for content, and often.

As I further explored AC, I found quality written essays, video and audio, all sorts of content-producing tutorials, an in-depth FAQ and a lot more information about it than I could take in at one sitting. AC is transparent about every aspect of what it offers its content producers, including detailed information on the types and kinds of rights one can choose for his or her submitted content.

AC is involved with and listening to its community, looking out for its interests in many different ways. On the company’s blog, AC founder Luke Beatty, fresh from attending the Online Publisher’s Association conference in London, acknowledged a problem that he and some in the community have with the term “user-generated content” — and that as far as AC’s content producers and Beatty were concerned, the term, as it applies to AC’s content, was inaccurate and should be dropped.

What would make a guy like Beatty — a former member of the executive management team at search developer WAND, Inc. — want to start a media company that revolves around what people wanted to publish, when they want to publish it? Where were the celebrities and guru-types? The political polemics and other populist forms of content production that seemed to be keeping other media companies afloat? What media company in its right mind is not only willing to pay for high-quality submissions but even kick stuff back to Content Produces for clean-up so that they could be paid? It all seemed to fly in the face of orthodox new-media company logic.

And that’s probably what makes Luke Beatty, Associated Content, and all its Content Producers a most curiously good read.

OJR: What’s the history of Associated Content?

Luke Beatty: I founded AC a little over two years ago, at around the same time that blogs reached the hundred-monkey-moment of ubiquity and it became obvious, painfully obvious for some in the traditional media, that people were not only willing, but eager, to consume and produce content outside the traditional media machinery. I came from a search and taxonomy background [at Wand, Inc.] and I could see that search was really about content, specifically relevancy and inventory.

I wanted to flatten the traditional relationship between content providers, consumers and advertisers so that all three groups could participate, friction-free, in the content economy in a consistent, advertiser-friendly format.

OJR: What made you want to launch a new content-focused media company at this time?

Beatty: It seemed like the right time to launch a media publishing company for the people, by the people, not just a “me me me” showcase like MySpace, but a chance to get published by and participate in a new kind of media company. Associated Content launched as “The People’s Media Company” [about a year and half after MySpace and a couple of months before YouTube], with my old college roommate, Tim Armstrong [now Google’s VP of advertising sales] as the non-executive chairman of the board.

OJR: Where’s “home” for Associated Content?

Beatty: We have offices in Denver and New York.

OJR: What’s meant by the tagline “The People’s Media Company?”

Beatty: Being “The People’s Media Company” means that the people get to publish what they want, and the people determine which content rises to the top. AC does include elements of both “citizen journalism” and “social networking,” but not in the way those terms are typically bandied about lately.

OJR: Then, what kind of “citizen journalism” does AC offer?

Beatty: We’re not focused on offering on-the-spot citizen coverage of breaking news, though we do have some of that. We offer more of what newspapers call “service” info and feature material, including a lot of “how-to” articles and videos from real people who’ve “been there and done that.” A great example is this article, which won AC’s first annual “People’s Media Award” for top content of 2006… it’s a really well-written, poignant first-person account of how not to freak out if you find out you’re HIV positive, by Barry Freiman: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/25442/getting_hiv_isnt_a_death_sentence.html

The People’s Media Award winner for Top Content Producer is Timothy Sexton; you can visit his Content Producer page here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/1624/timothy_sexton.html

You can check out the complete list of People’s Media Awards winners here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/pma

We also have a tremendous amount of hyperlocal, how-to and general interest material, which does very well, and tremendous depth of content across a wide range of perennially popular niche topics.

OJR: Can you explain how AC’s community works? How is it different from social networking sites?

Beatty: Community-wise, we have very active backstage forums where Content Producers share tips and support, but also feel free to criticize each others’ work. The community also provides strong feedback to me and the rest of the team, and that’s as it should be. It has to be totally transparent and open. Content Producers often riff off of one another’s content. I’ve heard of many instances where AC Content Producers located in the same geographic area have met and collaborated not just online but in real life, which is great.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the content; but the community aspect is also hugely important. Many people become contributors to AC because they want to sharpen or share their skills and insights as part of a larger community of purpose. It’s not the same as having your own blog or profile page at a social-networking site where you have a stand-alone soapbox aimed at just your circle of friends. We’ve found that the people who consistently contribute quality content are more often than not the same people who participate most actively in the “community” aspects of AC. I see our most popular and prolific Content Producers as being analogous to “Power Sellers” on eBay. EBay is a commerce site, not a social networking site, just as AC is a publishing platform, not a social networking play, but the social aspects are central to the site’s mojo.

OJR: Can you give us a sense of the size of AC’s community, and are there some “average” characteristics to Content Producers?

Beatty: AC is right now reaching the milestone of 50,000 registered Content Producers, up from 10,000 six months ago, with roughly 20 percent actively submitting content. There’s really no “average” CP profile; the pool is incredibly diverse, roughly reflecting the diversity of the online population at large, though it’s interesting that about 40 percent self-identify upon registration as full or part-time media professionals.

OJR: What are the advantages to being featured on AC vs. publishing to one’s own independent blog?

Beatty: AC has earned its reputation as a venue that responds quickly and publishes, and in many cases pays hard cash, fast, which is a big motivator for many, particularly for freelancers who regularly get ignored [and] strung along by other, less responsive outlets. Many contributors are attracted to being part of something bigger than themselves. They like participating in a new kind of democratic media company. Anyone can write an article, or create a video and upload it and it gets looked at promptly by a real person on our content-buying team. It either gets published or kicked back for polishing fast. If it’s something we especially want, you get a quick, clear offer for payment.

On the technology side, AC provides optimization and exposure in a consistent, advertiser-friendly format, and on the community side, there’s support and the feeling that you’re part of something larger than just yourself. Many of our Content Producers have migrated their content from personal blogs to AC because they didn’t want the administrative hassles of hosting their own blogs anymore. Others continue to maintain their own blogs, but see AC as a way to magnify the impact of their personal blogs, building a bigger audience for both outlets.

OJR: Does AC fact-check or edit content in any way? Is there an official “editorial staff?”

Beatty: Nope. Our content-buying team reviews each piece of content submitted and often kicks back to the producer for polishing. We won’t publish content that contains obscenities, but there’s absolutely no editorial control exerted. The content team chooses the pieces that we highlight based on organic popularity and subjective calls regarding quality. They issue calls for desired content, but they don’t do line editing or any other kind of editing or fact-checking. We could go down that road, but if we did that we wouldn’t be “The People’s Media Company.” AC is a publishing platform; it’s people-driven, not editor-driven. While that may be scary to people in traditional media, it’s not at all scary to regular people, who are now accustomed to a media diet that regularly ranges beyond traditional, “authoritative” sources.

OJR: One of the big incentives to publishing on AC, at first glance, looks to be that one might get paid. I understand that content is “bid” on before it is paid for. Can you further explain the bidding process?

Beatty: The bidding process is totally transparent. We’ve built a system that allows people to easily submit content for publication. Each submitted piece of content is reviewed promptly by a real person on our content buying team. If it needs polishing, we’ll bounce it back to be re-worked, and it if it’s something we think that people will want to access (based on our proprietary evaluation criteria), we’ll tell the contributor exactly what we’re willing to pay, and we’ll typically bid higher for exclusive rights. The key is that the communication is fast and straightforward. We put the Content Producer in the driver’s seat. If we’re interested in paying for the submitted content, we make a clear, fast offer. If the offer is accepted, we pay promptly, which many of our contributors really appreciate. But for many, the prospect of payment is clearly not the key motivator for contributing; many submit for “no pay.”

OJR: Does one lose all rights to republish any content that’s bid on and paid for by AC?

Beatty: It’s flexible. We keep the Content Producers in control by enabling them to submit each piece of content for either “exclusive” or “non-exclusive” publication. We typically pay more for exclusive submissions, and we currently hold exclusive rights to about 50 percnet of the content available on the site.

OJR: When did you start taking audio and video? Is audio and video content also paid for?

Beatty: We started accepting, and paying, for video and audio in the first half of 2005. As is the case for text, AC is unique in that we pay upfront for video content rather than resting on the revenue share model.

OJR: What’s AC’s revenue model? What are future plans for AC and its content producers?

Beatty: AC currently has two revenue sources: advertising and content syndication. We’ve spent next to nothing, just a few small campaigns running, and in the last six months, submissions and traffic have soared exponentially.
Fortunately we built a system that was designed to scale without significant retooling, so we’re able to devote our attention to finding additional ways to reward people for submitting content that’s apt to attract enough interest to support advertising.

OJR: What incentives and features will you offer AC’s Content Producers in the future?

Beatty: We just launched a beta of a new page view bonus program to augment our upfront payments for desirable content: http://www.associatedcontent.com/performancebonus.html.

In order to offer this bonus, we felt it was necessary to provide our Content Producers with a personal dash board of statistics to track the popularity of individual pieces of content. This is in line with our “people’s media” philosophy. A contributor to a traditional media company never even gets a glimpse into how his or her content performs over time; at Associated Content, we’ve tried to create an atmosphere of total transparency, because we’re all in this together. There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about the need for transparency in reporting to advertisers, but nobody talks about transparency for the people who actually produce the content. At AC, our goal is to demystify the process and make it open and honest for all.

Everything we do moving forward is driven by that philosophy; everyone wants exposure and everyone wants a clear deal.

I think sometimes people have a hard time getting what AC is all about, because it’s so simple and obvious and it’s as if we’re hiding in plain site. But we have nothing to hide, and that’s the whole point. AC is what it is: a place where anyone can get published (maybe get paid) and advertisers get to go both broad and deep into the contextual niches in a consistent, advertiser-friendly environment.