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Paul Miller Leaves Engadget/AOL - Cites AOL Way Issues
- ojbyrne 16y agoAOL seems like a flaming jet plane rapidly heading towards the ground. They keep thinking that you can use cash to create a parachute, but it seems not to work. Good for potential acquisitions though!
- petercooper 16y agoSomeone recently did the math on the "economics" of The Huffington Post (a recent AOL acquisition): http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/the-economics-of-blogging-and-the-huffington-post/ http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/the-econ... An average of $13 of revenue per post doesn't exactly fill one with optimism. If they were paying the going rate for writers, they'd be making a loss..
- ojbyrne 16y ago"picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates" might as well be the Web 2.0 motto.
- mkr-hn 16y agoThey probably make most of their money on the outlier posts that go big.
- petercooper 16y agoI agree, but that $13 figure was their calculation for the mean. The median is only $3. Lucky they're not paying much ;-)
- kenjackson 16y agoSee this page: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-aol-way#-18 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-aol-way#-18 The cost of a premium article is $250? The writers must get paid a lot less than I imagine.
- petercooper 16y ago$9 eCPM (per ad, not even per page)? If they can seriously get that for run of the mill non-niche content, that's where their real skill lies. There are plenty of part-time bloggers (including many HN users) who could make a serious chunk of change earning $9 eCPM even on their personal blogs..
- ojbyrne 16y agoPretty interesting article. Tim Armstrong is clearly insane, deeply evil, and yet also an idiot.
- chc 16y agoThat's for blog posts. The point was that news is much more profitable for them than blogs, and that's why the people who blog there don't make that much.
- larrik 16y ago"Good for potential acquisitions though!" Only if they get paid in cash...
- ojbyrne 16y agoI believe I mentioned that word.
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- recoiledsnake 16y agoUgh. This looks painful http://www.businessinsider.com/the-aol-way#-16 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-aol-way#-16 No wonder he quit. Any self-respecting writer wouldn't want to stay on.
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- mkr-hn 16y agoThere's a difference between maximizing profit and making enough to run a respectable operation. The better websites will post a lot of short, less than stellar articles to get search traffic and revenue, but still post good articles regularly. Ars Technica is a good example.
- blackysky 16y agoArs Technica does have stellar articles and they are not so short... I just think that it is sad that the main strategy is maximizing profit through page views over quality and creative writing... maybe I am crazy but that's my point view...maybe the actual system is broken...
- mkr-hn 16y agoMost systems seem to develop perverse incentives given enough time.
- sp332 16y agoYeah, I would. I already pay for Ars Technica, and I think Engadget would be a good complement.
- petercooper 16y agoMost full-time, high volume writers or journalists are used to this - it's not a question of self respect any more than questioning the self respect of someone who works in WalMart. You can still take pride in (and enjoy) your work even if it's under someone else's direction. On a much smaller scale, I, a small-time 'problogger', do the same. Monitoring trends, tracking things I know will be coming up.. For example, it's in my calendar that next Thursday it'll be 18 years since Matz started to develop Ruby - you can be sure I'll be writing about it ;-)
- hamrickdavid 16y agoThis is very disappointing. Paul is a great writer and a great voice on the engadget podcast.
- satoimo 16y agoI wonder if gdgt.com will have something to announce soon.
- SolarUpNote 16y agoI'm still angry at AOL from 10 years ago, when they kept stealing money out of my bank account - after I had cancelled my subscription. Why are they getting in to journalism? Did the government finally outlaw AOL's previous business model or what?
- callumjones 16y agoI'm more upset by the fact that he wont be on the Engadget Podcast. Those 3 make up probably some of the best dynamics for podcasts.
- kenjackson 16y agoUnquestionable. Great chemistry. They should consider bringing Joanna fulltime for Paul.
- kylec 16y agoEh, Joanna's a good writer but she's not really that good on the podcast. I'd prefer Myriam Joire (tnkgrl) instead - she's very entertaining on the Mobile podcast and would make a good compliment to Josh and Nilay.
- sp332 16y agounfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution.... AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content.... AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That ... doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive. This reminds me strongly of this old, but still very relevant post which explains why textfiles.com doesn't have advertising: http://www.textfiles.com/thoughts/advertising.html http://www.textfiles.com/thoughts/advertising.html
- benologist 16y agoSo basically they're just a real-time Demand Media.