AOL is to launch a UK version of the Huffington Post. I wonder how that will work out. Araina Huffington’s success in the US relied on bloggers writing for free. With the sale of the site to AOL, that willingness to provide free content evaporated somewhat. So, I wonder how the model will work over here. Or will it just be AOL employees providing the content as intimated in the BBC article? In which case, what makes it any different to any of the other commercial news sites?
She is expected to address a launch event on Wednesday, which will also feature former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie, spin doctor Alastair Campbell and civil rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti.
Um…
There’s actually quite a lot of writing done for free.
Ministers obviously don’t get paid for writing pieces for the newspapers. Nor, in fact, do a lot of politicians (I’ve ghosted a few such pieces in my time).
And the think tanks wonks like Andrew Simms: doubt very much he’s paid by Comment is Free (I’ve done the occasional free piece there, as well as paid pieces).
What HuffPo will end up with is, I think, swathes of these sorts of PR/adverts for a point of view which people will happily write for free.
Turgid to read of course….
Sounds wonderful…
The Evening Standard once asked me to write for free. Some of these people live in a dream world.
Pluck tried something similar. They wanted to syndicate blog posts and sell them on – but not pay the writer.
Sounds very much like one to avoid.
Kelvin Mackenzie?
Isn’t he a known public liar?