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Heh. I just got hit up by an as-yet-unlaunched site that's got the same model. It asked me to be the "Tech Stock" blogger, but offered *nothing* in return other than exposure. But from an unlaunched site? The email was hilarious in hyping up how wonderful the exposure would be... but in this case, it was even worse. It wouldn't repurpose content I'd already created. It wanted me to write up special posts for the site.

Yeah, I've seen a bunch of those. I think SeekingAlpha has probably done the best job of this, as it legitimately has a community and really impressive traffic. And I think that exposure can be key, especially for unknown bloggers, but it has to really deliver. Just knowing that your stuff is being read somewhere is nice, but if you're not really getting any tangible recognition for it, it's frustrating.

What Seeking Alpha has created is impressive. I only listed my problems with the way my content was treated, and what I recieved in exchange for it. I'm not sure it really works --- or ever worked -- for me.

Several bloggers emailed me privately to say that they thought the SA business model was completely inequitable. I cannot say I disagree . . .

Good post, Joseph.

Speaking from the point-of-view of a occassional SA contributer (a point we share in common), I think you are very fair in your estimate of the situation.

As you mentioned, Barry's is the latest in a series of posts that have provided some food for thought on this topic.

Along with posts at Controlled Greed, No Doodahs, Abnormal Returns, and these latest, I think I've read five such posts in the last few weeks.

Thanks David.
Yes, the point I'd hope to get across is this: SeekingAlpha isn't some parasite stealing content. They've built up a legitimate community through totally transparent means. But for it to be sustainable, it needs to find a more concrete way of giving back -- otherwise more folks will opt out over time. Even if there's nothing to be gained from opting out, the perception of not getting much in return will cause people to pull their stuff. And if you get someone like Techmeme in the finance/biz space, where they're organizing blog posts, but linking back a lot, then watch out.

Hmm, I will have to check out the Techmeme site and see how they do things.

That would be something to look forward to, as I think most bloggers would sooner look forward to a reasonable amount of link-through traffic (or the prospect of gaining a few new repeat visitors/readers) than receiving small checks from rather lopsided ad network schemes, as you mentioned.

I like submitting articles to SeekingAlpha twice to three times a week. I get pretty good exposure to readers that might not have found my blog otherwise. I do agree that changing content, once it is on SeekingAlpha could be an issue for some bloggers. I had to change something once, and SA fixed the issue when they received my e-mail.(it was my mistake, not theirs that I had to change something).
Honestly, if they shared some of their revenues from advertising with their bloggers that would be great; I doubt that I would be getting a ton of money though out of this ( $10/month forever sounds appealing though)

Joe, excellent stuff here. I'm just grappling over the SA business model myself here and went digging through everyone's old posts.

This says it all: "when posts get cited, they're frequently cited as "An interesting post over at SeekingAlpha..." In other words, the individual blogger often doesn't get the credit in the final count. And since credit is about the only thing that SeekingAlpha can offer to contributing writers, this is a real problem ... as a user's site gets more and more attention, it makes less and less sense to syndicate elsewhere. Where the site makes the most sense is for small, un-read sites."

Completely agree with this and I've found less and less appeal in contributing there lately. Back over a year ago when the whole Ritholtz argument went down, Dave Jackson said they were evaluating other options. Yet, a year later... still nothing.

Would love to talk to you more about this topic if you could drop me an email: marketfolly@gmail.com

Hopefully you see this comment even though its from an older post. Thanks

Jay

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  • The Stalwart is a blog written by Joseph Weisenthal, covering such topics as stocks, business, economics, politics, technology, gambling, chess, poker, economics, current events, music, math, Chinese food, science, randomness, kurtosis, sports, evolutionary fitness, and anything else of the author's choosing. The words contained herein are the author's own, not affiliated with any other firm or employer.

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