Why we need to reward proper writing and content again

Journalist typingHow much would you pay a reputable writer/journalist to write something for you, if you’re publishing online?

If you’re one of the new breed of comment-filled, blog-style portals, such as The Huffington Post, XOJane or others, the answer is very little to bugger all.

After almost a year, reports vary as to how successful AOL’s launch of The Huffington Post in the UK has been, but AOL has shut down a lot of its separate named channels, ie Entertainment, to funnel everyone to HuffPo’s equivalent. (Visit the AOL UK homepage to see what I mean)

What’s in a name, you may ask? Maybe nothing, but what has changed is the use and, some might say, abuse of journalists. Where before people used to pay for a writer to craft some carefully-honed words on a subject, now HuffPo very rarely coughs up. Apparently, it’s a kudos thing to appear there.

Admittedly, things had been going downhill for a while with many writers being asked to drop their rates for online work, but this has taken it to a new low.

But the Huffington Post isn’t the only one to blame. XOJane – the sassy, edgy, online successor to Jane Magazine – is soon to launch a UK version and, rumour has it that journalists are being tempted with the offer of writing a ‘post’ (an article by any other name) for just £30.

Without wanting to sound all Linda Evangelista about it, who’d want to wake up and write for that frankly-insulting amount?

Adapt or die?

There are those people who say that writers should just ‘man up’ and accept that the world of work is changing and adapt or die.

To them, I say, fine. There’s nothing wrong with adapting, but it helps if others adapt with you. A good contributor is good, no matter where their content ends up (offline, online, broadcast, etc). If someone spends time doing something, the least you can do is reward them commensurately for their effort.

Yes, there are thousands of amateur, part-time, bored bloggers who are happy to contribute their thoughts for nothing, and, if that’s the case, let them do so.

But if a trained, experienced professional who knows what they’re doing offers their services, do the decent thing and respect them for their knowledge and ability.

Is the internet really that different?

However, the overriding argument for rewarding someone properly for their labours comes with the visibility of the work.

Admittedly, very few people have worked out how to make money out of internet content, but that doesn’t mean the quality should be any less good than the paper variety.

In fact, there’s an argument that brands and organisations should spend more on online content, because it doesn’t disappear at the end of the day/week/month.

By that I mean, once a magazine has been read, how often do you go back to an old issue and hunt out a specific article. Exactly. It’s gone.

With web content, although it can be expunged, it tends not to be and is often left published in perpetuity. High-quality content reflects superbly on your brand and encourages users to think better of you, rate you as experts and be more trusted.

The corollary is fairly obvious. Poor writing, video, images, etc, make you look bad. Who trusts a site that consistently publishes mistakes, terribly-argued comment or sub-standard pictures and film?

Just because you publish a lot, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s quality – probably more so if you don’t pay for it.

It takes a while, but quality content (and often I mean writing) genuinely does win out. Everyone may think (and tell you) they’re a writer. Only a small proportion actually are.

Why reaching the digitally excluded is more important than ever

Older woman on a computer
CC image courtesy of Simon Vorgrimmler on Flickr
Amid all the bad news, there was a positive story today, as new figures reveal that the UK economy is the most internet-based of all the G20 countries.

The internet now contributes to 8.3% of the UK economy – roughly £2,000 per person – and that figure is set only to rise.

By contrast, today sees the start of Age UK’s annual myfriendsonline week – an event geared around helping older people discover the social side of the internet (Admission: I work for Age UK, so I have a vested interest).

While the two are not inextricably linked, the ever-increasing importance of the internet to our economy – 13.5% of transactions were carried out over the web in 2010 – makes the number of people who don’t have online access even more shocking.

There are currently 8.2 million people in the UK who are digitally excluded (of which 5.7m are people in later life). This number has dropped from 10m in 2009, largely thanks to the efforts of RaceOnline and its associated partners, but there’s still a lot to do.

Of these 8 million people, there will inevitably be some deliberate refuseniks, who want nothing to do with it, but, at Age UK, we know there are consistent common reasons that, specifically, put older people off getting online. They are:

1. Not knowing ‘how it works’

2. Lack of confidence

3. Worry about ‘doing something wrong’

4. Safety and security issues.

There is also a fear that once they learn how to use the internet, it will take over their life and they will ‘waste time’, rather than doing ‘real-life activities’, such as socialising.

The benefits of being online seem obvious to those of us already here and who are tech-savvy, but imagine how you’d cope without it now.

Try to think of a world where you don’t have a smartphone – just one that makes calls and sends texts. You have no laptop at home or no PC at work – no social media, no emails, no ecommerce. Scary isn’t it?

That’s why it’s so important to help those people who aren’t online make the jump.

Why CEOP head Jim Gamble’s resignation is a big blow

Jim Gamble - former head of CEOPNews that Jim Gamble, head of the Children Exploitation and Online Protection Agency (CEOP), has resigned is a huge blow.

Previously, I worked at AOL on the Youth proposition for almost 3 years and came into contact with him on a number of occasions and was always very impressed with him.

As CEOP’s head, he was occasionally accused of being too combative, but since CEOP was launched in 2006, it’s undeniable that the agency (under Gamble’s leadership) has done a huge amount of very successful work highlighting the problem of cyberbullying and protecting kids online.

Cyberbullying is one of those crimes that are often viewed as being silly or unimportant if they haven’t happened to you or a close contact.

That Gamble managed to force the issues into the wider sphere so successfully is to be applauded and his stance that caused him to resign – not wanting CEOP to becoming dissolved into a National Crime Agency – is admirable.

It’s interesting to see that those who are most upset by Jim Gamble’s resignation and Theresa May’s plans are on the more political side – campaigners, politicians and the police – while the ones who are quietly smug are the ISPs, who are making money out of the internet – potentially at the expense of kids’ safety.

It’s an issue on which I sit squarely in the middle. Those who seek to try to control the internet are frankly deluded and, while trying to impose rules and conditions makes a lot of sense in theory, its free and liberating nature will always make it a breeding ground for both good and evil.

However, ISPs still do not do enough to help protect the innocent online. The internet is somewhere where innovation and technology can easily be used for good. Granted there’s far less money in offering broadband than there used to be, but it wouldn’t take too much work to try and introduce some industry-wide safety and security tools to help and protect kids online.

Not too much to ask for really, is it?