Sunday, June 26, 2005

MSN hiring paid bloggers

Steve Rubel comments on recent job listings from MSN seeking bloggers for hire. (He was alerted by MediaPost.)

People are funny.

Their reactions are so overtly cynical and suspicious...and probably mostly driven by the fact that it's MSN behind it. So much for Scoble humanizing Microsoft, huh?

I'm not sure why Nick Denton thinks he alone has the skill to hire talented writers. Nor why he thinks that the existence of Gawker Media or Weblogs Inc eliminates the need for any other blog networks. (The implication behind saying that the idea doesn't seem interesting or new. I mean, does that mean his own idea isn't interesting?)

I'm not sure why people think that MSN should seek out only people already blogging about the topics they're planning to cover. I mean God forbid they seek out new, fresh voices, right? Not when we already have 5 prominent bloggers to choose from on any given topic, you know?

I continue to wonder why bloggers who take great pride in their own blogging talent and effort consider offering to pay bloggers for creating consistent, quality content is somehow besmirching the efforts of us all.

No. Being willing to invest in something is a good thing.

Are you glad Van Gogh died a pauper and never sold his work until after his death? Is that noble? Should MOzart have died penniless? I'm not.

I doubt that MSN will, in fact, be paying enough for the value they're expecting to get.

Comments:
Being willing to invest in something IS a good thing. Microsoft doesn't tend to invest in things - they tend to buy them. And only when it serves their purposes in some way.

So, yes it is good for deserving people to get paid to allow them to do the thing that they love. When getting into bed with Microsoft, though, there is likely to be a lot more exectation to act like an employee rather than an individual.
 
Well, I guess they're hoping that the Scoble example will help people think that they *do* allow individualism.

Doesn't seemed to have worked on you though :)
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?