September 14, 2011 at 19:59Relevant Media Content Factory Overview
Most projects that require quality content find themselves in a quandary. On the one hand, of course, I want it to be mega-quality - and here the director will certainly point a finger at the best thematic sites. But, on the other hand, when the pricing of this content (the authors, editors, experts, man-hours for selecting a team and the ability to manage it) is found out, nameless copywriters from free-lance.ru and the budget suddenly win at the cost of going to the supermarket.
However, there is a middle way. Content is work, it can be produced in specified volumes with the specified quality parameters, which are quite amenable to formalization. And it’s quite possible to set up a conveyor on which letters will be folded into texts of a decent level, meaningless, readable, informative. It is enough to set all these parameters in the original TK. Well, gather people who know how to work like that. Of course, the factory product will be inferior in many respects to the unique works of individual craftsmen, but it will have all the advantages of manufactory production: scalability and reproducibility of the result at an acceptable cost of the final product. This is the content factory that the Relevant Media project released by Fast Lane Ventures represents :
The Relevant Media model is not unique, but is an adaptation for our market of the Demand Media project, opened in 2006 , which is the world's largest “content farm”. The idea was to hire online copywriters who work on an ongoing basis and provide the “farm” with a steady flow of thematic content, which the company sells at its discretion. The authors received regular payments, the size of which depended on their hard work and the success of the texts, and Demand Media posted materials on sites such as eHow and Cracked.com , and made money on contextual advertising. The topics offered to copywriters were based on popular search queries.
Relevantmedia.ruIt offers a kind of more stable in terms of earnings alternative to standard freelance: the authors work on articles for small fees, but the ones offered so much that you can completely forget about competition and struggle for each order. At the same time, the advantages of freelance do not disappear: you can work as much as you want, when and where you want.
Content produced on the 'farm » RM , gets tips site Kak Prosto and several other resources, including - recently described me searcher tickets Jizo.ru .
To date, 2,000 authors are registered in the RM system, and content production plans are overfulfilled - even without advertising support, the service is growing faster than expected.
Before registering, using the link on the main page, we can find out about the form of cooperation offered by RM, as well as take a look at the list of partners of the site. These are the very resources where RelevantMedia "products" are now delivered. A cursory acquaintance with them will not hurt the future author.
The tabs "Writers" and "Editors" will allow you to learn a little more about the fact that the resource requires specialists of the appropriate profile. RM reports that “almost everyone who feels the ability to work with text and the desire to share knowledge” will fit the role of writers. They are expected from the editors "perfect literacy and a broad outlook, a rich vocabulary, a practical understanding of the principles of building texts and editing skills."
It is impossible to get acquainted with the service in more detail without being authorized in the system. The site clearly would not hurt the opportunity to consider all its advantages and disadvantages from a guest account, which could be “upgraded” to a working one if you wish. On the registration page, in addition to the standard login and password, it is required to indicate the areas to which the copywriter's writing skills apply, as well as download an example of work: in the form of an attached document, or simply leave the text in a special field. At this stage, the presence of at least some portfolio is added to the collection of requirements for the authors, which is checked by moderators for compliance with the required level of quality. Well, or at least the general adequacy of the potential author.
The declared waiting time for processing the application is up to 48 hours. I left mine on Saturday night and already on Monday morning received approval from the moderators.
After registration, the main page will look different: now it’s the desktop of the RelevantMedia copywriter, which contains statistics on the work taken and completed and the necessary links. To begin work on the first article, we need to provide information about the method of transferring money. This is something like visiting an accounting department after applying for a job: RM requires entering full information about bank details and passport data.
Money will be credited once a week to the indicated bank account. Unlike freelance, where the payment of all taxes remains on the conscience of the author, RM, like a regular employer, deducts them from the fee. These are the same 34% of insurance premiums that make up a future pension. For this reason, one of the required fields is the number of the pension insurance certificate.
After filling out the form, the payment data is sent for consideration to the chief accountant, and it will not be possible to correct them if, for example, an inaccuracy was made. Data verification has been established seriously: it’s impossible to even enter the invalid number of the insurance pension certificate or TIN - the system will recognize them and will require you to enter the data correctly. When choosing a place of residence, she will automatically upload a list of streets and houses - she will not be able to dream up here either. Work with the service can only be started after checking the confirmation of the data. The exact timing of the verification on the site is not indicated, but in my case it took less than a day.
A separate issue is the security of your information. In addition to a text message about data protection, no other confirmation is given. Here RM should pay attention to the experience of Western companies that guarantee their honesty not only with a good name, but also with various certificates of trust.
The two-level registration system at RM reflects the entire "seriousness of intentions" of the project, but, of course, it is inferior to the standards of convenience and usability of modern web projects. Of course, there is a difference between an online store, where developers try to remove all the obstacles in the way of your money in their pocket whenever possible, and a site that offers stable earnings. But all the same, the process, in my opinion, is unreasonably complicated for a first acquaintance and places excessive demands on the confidence of a newcomer copywriter: nevertheless, the author must make significant efforts to get into the project before starting work. The generally accepted model in this case would be the opportunity to immediately start working (all the more so since the first selection - by portfolio - has been completed), and to provide payment data is closer to the point - when you need to withdraw the first earned funds. However, according to the developers of the project, they nevertheless do not feel a lack of authors - the word of mouth works, and people know where and why they are going.
So, the billing information of the new user has been sent and approved. It's time to take on the first job. The role switch (and, accordingly, the tasks offered to us) is located in the upper right corner, above the menu bar. For beginners, only the role of the writer is available, on its example we will consider the interaction with the site when writing an article.
The menu item “Find Jobs” on the desktop leads to a list of available jobs. To the left of the table is a filter: you will need it if you want to write content only for certain sites or their sections. The principle of the formation of topics on the site is their relevance, that is, orders are received for materials that will not lose their usefulness for years. That is, news texts go past, rule eternal topics such as recipes or "how to tie a tie."
By clicking on the topic name, you can go to the page with information about it. It is not clear, however, why: there is no more information there than is presented in the table. There will be no introduction on what is specifically required of the article. This can be explained by the fact that the material is offered short and there are a lot of it. Clicking on the “Run” button will transfer the selected job to “Tasks”, where you can enter through the desktop submenu.
"Tasks" are the same table, only it consists solely of the work taken by the user. For beginners, the limit on the number of simultaneously taken work is three pieces. By clicking “Write,” we get to the page for writing the article.
Do not be surprised at the unusual toolkit: as mentioned earlier, the articles here are more like instructions or recipes. The one who got into the “admin panel” for the first time will lack instructions explaining the purpose of specific fields. It’s easier to figure it out by looking at a specific text example - on kakprosto.ru I literally in a couple of clicks found material suitable for the example , containing all the fields. Submission of material - as a rule, in the form of step-by-step instructions, sometimes it is required to additionally indicate the necessary tools for its implementation. There are separate fields in the admin panel for this. However, sometimes the material may be similar to a regular note . The mandatory elements are always the announcement, title image and body of the article.
The site is equipped with a system for checking texts for plagiarism. In addition, quality control is carried out by living RM employees and freelance editors from among the authors of the project.
After sending, the text goes to users who have assumed the role of editor. They can approve and reject articles, as well as make changes and leave comments, giving the article to the author for revision. An approved article is payable, a rejected article becomes the property of the author, sent for revision - it must be corrected, after which it will be accepted or not. The time given to the editor to check the article is two days.
Recently RM offered its users another position - “headline writer”. His job is to offer the site new original topics for articles. After the title is approved by RM staff, the author will have priority on creating an article on it: the topic will be available only to its creator for 48 hours, and only after that it will be included in the general list.
Beginning authors should pay attention to the "Resources" section. This is a library of pretty useful reference materials on how to write interesting articles and edit them wisely. This is exactly the toolkit that, in the end, ensures the compliance of the produced content with the specified quality criteria and its stability. Here, in a concise and accessible form, the basic requirements for network texts are outlined. The minus of this reference is the presentation form: the material is laid out in the form of a heap of separate notes, to read each of which it is necessary to go to a separate page. Few people read instructions even for complex technical devices, and for a user to want to read help on using an Internet resource, they need to be made at least very convenient for navigation. However, if you recall the specifics of working with RM, then everything will fall into place: it's like reading office documents. Boring, but absolutely necessary.
The most interesting thing is how much you can earn on this. Forced to disappoint optimists: on the same freelance for one article you can get more. But at the same time, the order must be found, received, completed, taking into account the specific requirements of each specific order - and this will still be only one article.
The average text on Relevant Media has a volume of 1500-2000 characters, the rate for the material is fixed - 115 p. (of which 15 p. - 13% of personal income tax, the remaining taxes - from above), and the abundance of topics available allows you to work without being distracted by the search for an order. In its FAQ, the project promises an average income of about 30,000 p. per month. It is easy to calculate that when working 22 days a month, this means 12 texts per day, or about 40 minutes per text with a standard working day. This conveyor, yes. However, already as an urban legend, the project tells a real, nonetheless, story about a woman from the region who earned 85,000 rubles. in a month, writing nearly 800 articles. Real mad skillz.
For editing the text they pay 15 p., For the heading - 4 p. When you come up with a headline for a new post for half an hour, torturing yourself and everyone you get at that moment in ICQ online, the amount seems ridiculous. However, if we discard personal ambitions and return to business indicators, the following fact will be curious: in just an hour after introducing the role of a writer of headings on the project, more than 700 of them have already been made. And it is easy to calculate that the cost of producing an article is 134 rubles. Given the volume, it is very inexpensive: in August more than 18,000 texts were produced with the number of active authors in several hundred people.
Despite the overfulfillment of plans and a fairly decent "staff" of authors, the creators of the project understand that there is much room for improvement and plan a redesign.
The earnings model of the project itself copies the experience of DemandMedia : selling ads on the website Kakprosto.ru , which in this scheme turns out to be the main one - the front office, whose uninterrupted supply of texts is occupied by RelevantMedia. In addition, content is delivered to partner sites - primarily other Fast Lane Ventures projects. In principle, RelevantMedia is open to partnership with other projects that require good content in large quantities, but exclusively on an individual basis, because the creators of the project do not consider this as the main source of income.
Perhaps closeness is the main minus of the project. He could change the ecosystem of the Runet by offering a huge number of quality texts at an affordable price, and he probably would not have equal ones in terms of price / quality / volume ratio.
However, while the project remains to some extent a “thing in itself”, and its trick, thanks to which he deserved this review, lies in the very approach to organizing the process. My school teacher of literature would grab a blow by reading these lines, but RM clearly demonstrates that writing texts is an ordinary craft, which is not very different, for example, from creating stools - it is enough to have certain skills and the right tools for the job. Good or bad, but it works.
However, there is a middle way. Content is work, it can be produced in specified volumes with the specified quality parameters, which are quite amenable to formalization. And it’s quite possible to set up a conveyor on which letters will be folded into texts of a decent level, meaningless, readable, informative. It is enough to set all these parameters in the original TK. Well, gather people who know how to work like that. Of course, the factory product will be inferior in many respects to the unique works of individual craftsmen, but it will have all the advantages of manufactory production: scalability and reproducibility of the result at an acceptable cost of the final product. This is the content factory that the Relevant Media project released by Fast Lane Ventures represents :
Project history
The Relevant Media model is not unique, but is an adaptation for our market of the Demand Media project, opened in 2006 , which is the world's largest “content farm”. The idea was to hire online copywriters who work on an ongoing basis and provide the “farm” with a steady flow of thematic content, which the company sells at its discretion. The authors received regular payments, the size of which depended on their hard work and the success of the texts, and Demand Media posted materials on sites such as eHow and Cracked.com , and made money on contextual advertising. The topics offered to copywriters were based on popular search queries.
Relevantmedia.ruIt offers a kind of more stable in terms of earnings alternative to standard freelance: the authors work on articles for small fees, but the ones offered so much that you can completely forget about competition and struggle for each order. At the same time, the advantages of freelance do not disappear: you can work as much as you want, when and where you want.
Content produced on the 'farm » RM , gets tips site Kak Prosto and several other resources, including - recently described me searcher tickets Jizo.ru .
To date, 2,000 authors are registered in the RM system, and content production plans are overfulfilled - even without advertising support, the service is growing faster than expected.
registration
Before registering, using the link on the main page, we can find out about the form of cooperation offered by RM, as well as take a look at the list of partners of the site. These are the very resources where RelevantMedia "products" are now delivered. A cursory acquaintance with them will not hurt the future author.
The tabs "Writers" and "Editors" will allow you to learn a little more about the fact that the resource requires specialists of the appropriate profile. RM reports that “almost everyone who feels the ability to work with text and the desire to share knowledge” will fit the role of writers. They are expected from the editors "perfect literacy and a broad outlook, a rich vocabulary, a practical understanding of the principles of building texts and editing skills."
It is impossible to get acquainted with the service in more detail without being authorized in the system. The site clearly would not hurt the opportunity to consider all its advantages and disadvantages from a guest account, which could be “upgraded” to a working one if you wish. On the registration page, in addition to the standard login and password, it is required to indicate the areas to which the copywriter's writing skills apply, as well as download an example of work: in the form of an attached document, or simply leave the text in a special field. At this stage, the presence of at least some portfolio is added to the collection of requirements for the authors, which is checked by moderators for compliance with the required level of quality. Well, or at least the general adequacy of the potential author.
The declared waiting time for processing the application is up to 48 hours. I left mine on Saturday night and already on Monday morning received approval from the moderators.
After registration, the main page will look different: now it’s the desktop of the RelevantMedia copywriter, which contains statistics on the work taken and completed and the necessary links. To begin work on the first article, we need to provide information about the method of transferring money. This is something like visiting an accounting department after applying for a job: RM requires entering full information about bank details and passport data.
Money will be credited once a week to the indicated bank account. Unlike freelance, where the payment of all taxes remains on the conscience of the author, RM, like a regular employer, deducts them from the fee. These are the same 34% of insurance premiums that make up a future pension. For this reason, one of the required fields is the number of the pension insurance certificate.
After filling out the form, the payment data is sent for consideration to the chief accountant, and it will not be possible to correct them if, for example, an inaccuracy was made. Data verification has been established seriously: it’s impossible to even enter the invalid number of the insurance pension certificate or TIN - the system will recognize them and will require you to enter the data correctly. When choosing a place of residence, she will automatically upload a list of streets and houses - she will not be able to dream up here either. Work with the service can only be started after checking the confirmation of the data. The exact timing of the verification on the site is not indicated, but in my case it took less than a day.
A separate issue is the security of your information. In addition to a text message about data protection, no other confirmation is given. Here RM should pay attention to the experience of Western companies that guarantee their honesty not only with a good name, but also with various certificates of trust.
The two-level registration system at RM reflects the entire "seriousness of intentions" of the project, but, of course, it is inferior to the standards of convenience and usability of modern web projects. Of course, there is a difference between an online store, where developers try to remove all the obstacles in the way of your money in their pocket whenever possible, and a site that offers stable earnings. But all the same, the process, in my opinion, is unreasonably complicated for a first acquaintance and places excessive demands on the confidence of a newcomer copywriter: nevertheless, the author must make significant efforts to get into the project before starting work. The generally accepted model in this case would be the opportunity to immediately start working (all the more so since the first selection - by portfolio - has been completed), and to provide payment data is closer to the point - when you need to withdraw the first earned funds. However, according to the developers of the project, they nevertheless do not feel a lack of authors - the word of mouth works, and people know where and why they are going.
Beginning of work
So, the billing information of the new user has been sent and approved. It's time to take on the first job. The role switch (and, accordingly, the tasks offered to us) is located in the upper right corner, above the menu bar. For beginners, only the role of the writer is available, on its example we will consider the interaction with the site when writing an article.
The menu item “Find Jobs” on the desktop leads to a list of available jobs. To the left of the table is a filter: you will need it if you want to write content only for certain sites or their sections. The principle of the formation of topics on the site is their relevance, that is, orders are received for materials that will not lose their usefulness for years. That is, news texts go past, rule eternal topics such as recipes or "how to tie a tie."
By clicking on the topic name, you can go to the page with information about it. It is not clear, however, why: there is no more information there than is presented in the table. There will be no introduction on what is specifically required of the article. This can be explained by the fact that the material is offered short and there are a lot of it. Clicking on the “Run” button will transfer the selected job to “Tasks”, where you can enter through the desktop submenu.
"Tasks" are the same table, only it consists solely of the work taken by the user. For beginners, the limit on the number of simultaneously taken work is three pieces. By clicking “Write,” we get to the page for writing the article.
Do not be surprised at the unusual toolkit: as mentioned earlier, the articles here are more like instructions or recipes. The one who got into the “admin panel” for the first time will lack instructions explaining the purpose of specific fields. It’s easier to figure it out by looking at a specific text example - on kakprosto.ru I literally in a couple of clicks found material suitable for the example , containing all the fields. Submission of material - as a rule, in the form of step-by-step instructions, sometimes it is required to additionally indicate the necessary tools for its implementation. There are separate fields in the admin panel for this. However, sometimes the material may be similar to a regular note . The mandatory elements are always the announcement, title image and body of the article.
The site is equipped with a system for checking texts for plagiarism. In addition, quality control is carried out by living RM employees and freelance editors from among the authors of the project.
After sending, the text goes to users who have assumed the role of editor. They can approve and reject articles, as well as make changes and leave comments, giving the article to the author for revision. An approved article is payable, a rejected article becomes the property of the author, sent for revision - it must be corrected, after which it will be accepted or not. The time given to the editor to check the article is two days.
Recently RM offered its users another position - “headline writer”. His job is to offer the site new original topics for articles. After the title is approved by RM staff, the author will have priority on creating an article on it: the topic will be available only to its creator for 48 hours, and only after that it will be included in the general list.
Beginning authors should pay attention to the "Resources" section. This is a library of pretty useful reference materials on how to write interesting articles and edit them wisely. This is exactly the toolkit that, in the end, ensures the compliance of the produced content with the specified quality criteria and its stability. Here, in a concise and accessible form, the basic requirements for network texts are outlined. The minus of this reference is the presentation form: the material is laid out in the form of a heap of separate notes, to read each of which it is necessary to go to a separate page. Few people read instructions even for complex technical devices, and for a user to want to read help on using an Internet resource, they need to be made at least very convenient for navigation. However, if you recall the specifics of working with RM, then everything will fall into place: it's like reading office documents. Boring, but absolutely necessary.
Earning
The most interesting thing is how much you can earn on this. Forced to disappoint optimists: on the same freelance for one article you can get more. But at the same time, the order must be found, received, completed, taking into account the specific requirements of each specific order - and this will still be only one article.
The average text on Relevant Media has a volume of 1500-2000 characters, the rate for the material is fixed - 115 p. (of which 15 p. - 13% of personal income tax, the remaining taxes - from above), and the abundance of topics available allows you to work without being distracted by the search for an order. In its FAQ, the project promises an average income of about 30,000 p. per month. It is easy to calculate that when working 22 days a month, this means 12 texts per day, or about 40 minutes per text with a standard working day. This conveyor, yes. However, already as an urban legend, the project tells a real, nonetheless, story about a woman from the region who earned 85,000 rubles. in a month, writing nearly 800 articles. Real mad skillz.
For editing the text they pay 15 p., For the heading - 4 p. When you come up with a headline for a new post for half an hour, torturing yourself and everyone you get at that moment in ICQ online, the amount seems ridiculous. However, if we discard personal ambitions and return to business indicators, the following fact will be curious: in just an hour after introducing the role of a writer of headings on the project, more than 700 of them have already been made. And it is easy to calculate that the cost of producing an article is 134 rubles. Given the volume, it is very inexpensive: in August more than 18,000 texts were produced with the number of active authors in several hundred people.
Despite the overfulfillment of plans and a fairly decent "staff" of authors, the creators of the project understand that there is much room for improvement and plan a redesign.
The earnings model of the project itself copies the experience of DemandMedia : selling ads on the website Kakprosto.ru , which in this scheme turns out to be the main one - the front office, whose uninterrupted supply of texts is occupied by RelevantMedia. In addition, content is delivered to partner sites - primarily other Fast Lane Ventures projects. In principle, RelevantMedia is open to partnership with other projects that require good content in large quantities, but exclusively on an individual basis, because the creators of the project do not consider this as the main source of income.
Perhaps closeness is the main minus of the project. He could change the ecosystem of the Runet by offering a huge number of quality texts at an affordable price, and he probably would not have equal ones in terms of price / quality / volume ratio.
However, while the project remains to some extent a “thing in itself”, and its trick, thanks to which he deserved this review, lies in the very approach to organizing the process. My school teacher of literature would grab a blow by reading these lines, but RM clearly demonstrates that writing texts is an ordinary craft, which is not very different, for example, from creating stools - it is enough to have certain skills and the right tools for the job. Good or bad, but it works.