Statistics Bleg

by AnnB on July 30, 2007

Bleg = blogger begs (asks) for info.

Anyone know of any other Geosign domain registration name besides NYC Group?

Also, anyone have a breakdown of the 90,000 sites?

I’m presuming True Local counts as one of 90,000 sites? Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks in advance.

Related posts:

  1. Due diligence

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Comments

Anonymous August 1, 2007 at 4:26 pm

off topic. and this is kind of old news already. but if you’re still geo-watching, look:
http://write-win.blogspot.com/2007/07/opportunities-expand-for-heliums.html

Geosign has been buying content from Massachusetts-based content broker Helium (helium.com) for $16 (the minimum) per article.

you can see Geosign’s profile there:
http://www.helium.com/user/show/215336

Helium asks writers to submit articles on a given topic, then Geosign picks the one they want from the pool and pays the writer of that article.

it’s exploitive “citizen journalism 2.0″ at its most heinous. Amateur writers are pitted against each other in thousands of simultaneous writing contests, whereby they may earn a pittance for the millions of words submitted. (Helium claims to have 300,000 articles archived)

On-staff writers at Geosign did on average earn less than $16 per page, but they also had benefits, stability, profit-sharing (once upon a time) and other perks. Buying content from Helium means Geosign gets juicy spider-food content without any of the overhead of keeping someone employed.

The blogosphere is covered in posts from people who joined Helium hoping to earn megabucks staying at home writing about chihuahuas, then losing faith as writing 30+ original articles earned a whopping $2.59

Don’t spend it all in one place…

Reply

AnnB August 1, 2007 at 6:06 pm

I’m going to do a whole post on this content issue. I think it’s super funny to see all the Domainers and Geosign execs talking about content as if they know anything about it.

Which is not to say that in areas like arbitrage, writers and the MSM don’t have a few tricks to learn from Domainers and Geosign.

Of course, Helium’s bad for writers. If they want to see any profits, they have to get their writing up on the web and run the ads themselves.

More TK and thanks for the tip.

Reply

Anonymous August 1, 2007 at 10:36 pm

you’re a bit of a hypocrite Ann

an ad for Helium was running on your site just days ago

I think that is super funny

Reply

AnnB August 1, 2007 at 11:58 pm

There have been lots of crazy ads on my sites. That’s one of the problems with Google ads. You’ll be running a story on ax murderers and alongside it, there will be an ad for axes. This is why we still need humans.

For the record, I have nothing against Helium advertising. I just don’t think it’s a good deal for writers.

They should just click on the ads, cost Helium money, and not get suckered in.

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Anonymous August 2, 2007 at 10:06 pm

I’m no expert Ann, but it sounds to me like you are publicly promoting click fraud.

Is that what you meant to say?

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AnnB August 2, 2007 at 10:14 pm

Nope.

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Anonymous August 3, 2007 at 4:56 pm

“Exploitive” is right! Consider that $16 dollars is little more than two hours work at minimum wage. I don’t know too many good writers who can produce quality content in an hour or two.

My advice to writers is not to accept slave labour wages. If you want exposure for your work, there are plenty of publications out there to work for.

Reply

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