Blogging, can be a very good way to earn extra money online. Especially if you know how to attract a large number of readers. However, if you have a blog or website, but don’t have the skills, energy, or time to keep it up, here’s another option for you. There’s a place online, where you can sell your article’s, and get paid. Associated Content, or AC, is that place.
Associated Content (from what I’ve researched), was a place where you could get paid for submitting your articles, or reviews. It seemed to be a popular company among writers online. Some considered it to be an excellent website to submit your articles to, and get extra cash. But let’s see if this was as good as some say it was to make money from home. We will also look into other details of the business, including the pros and con’s of working with this website.
What was Associated Content and how did it work?
Associated Content (AC), also known as the “people’s media company”, was a website that paid you for submitting articles. A writer could write on any topic of his/her interest, and all article’s submitted were required to be a certain length. The articles were required to be at least 400 words, on top of the fact that you could only insert original pictures, from approved sources. So writers submitted articles and the website made money through posting ads on them. The website also provided tips on how to write excellent articles, to make it easier for new writers to be successful.
So we now know that Associated Content made money through their many advertisements. It’s aim was to get more traffic to the website, by attracting a huge number of writers and readers, to the platform. Associated Content paid well to their members. Writers submitted their articles to the website, and Associated Content offered money in return. You would be paid via U.S postal service, in exchange for exclusive rights to your articles, after reviewing them thoroughly. The writer then has the choice to either accept the offer or decline it, and sell the article to another site.
Apart from that, there was another way to earn money with Associated Content. The website would pay you money to view their articles. But I’ll get more in detail about this a little later in the article. Let’s cover a little backround about the company.
The company was based in Denver, Colorado. It was started by Luke Beatty, in January 2005. Then the company was bought by Yahoo for $90 million, on May 19, 2010. After two years of success, it was rebranded as Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo announced strict submission policies, and stated that it would delete over 75,000 article’s. Yahoo could not do well with it, and the company was closed on July 31, 2014.
Was it successful?
Associated Content was a huge success before they closed down. The fact that Yahoo wanted to buy their website shows that it had to be very popular, and well known at that time. It contained over 500,000 expert’s, and enthusiast. It had great review’s and most of its user’s were very satisfied with the company’s policies. However Yahoo could not do well with the company. It failed to keep up with the changing nature of the internet, and decided to shut down.
How did it pay?
Associated Content paid via PayPal. Once the writer agreed to the money offered by the website, he or she would be paid within a few days. Normally, the members were paid within 3-5 days. But sometimes it could take longer. The money offered by Associated Content for the articles was good too. The normal rate was between $4 and $7 dollars. But if you wrote well, you were offered more money. Users were paid for viewing the websites article’s. The website paid $1.50 per 1,000 views. If the article got popular, it could get thousands of views. So, it depended upon the ability of the writer to write well. In both ways, there was an opportunity to earn money handsomely. You could do it part time, as well as full time.
Pros and cons
The Associated Content website was very popular, and was regarded as one of the most successful companies of that time. Let’s see in detail the pros of con’s of working with this website.
Pros
- Writing on your interests: You had the opportunity to write about the topics you were interested in. Unlike most of the freelancing jobs, you were not bound by the requirements of the client there. You could write about anything you wanted in any way you liked. This was a great advantage of working on that website, as you didn’t have to write about boring stuff. I also enhanced the quality and productivity of your articles because you wrote with consistency and with interest being involved.
- Making contact with writers: Associated Content was a great place to make professional contacts. It had a very active forum where members could communicate with each other, and share their experiences. In this way, you had chances to get hired by clients outside the forum as well. That helped new freelancers in getting more paying, writing, online jobs.
- Learning: As it is said, we learn from our experiences. Associated Content, was a place where writers could get better at their craft. Here you could learn how to write more popular articles and about topics people are more interested in. So Associated Content was a good training place for newbies.
Con’s
- Little to offer for experienced writers: Associated Content was a good place for beginners. But it had very little to offer for experienced writers. The earnings through writing the articles was okay, but it was not as good as the experienced freelancers could earn through writing for other sources and clients.
- Editing was not allowed: Once an article was published, it could not be edited. That was a major drawback to publishing your articles to the website. At times, the articles require editing for many reasons. Editing is very much required for keeping the articles new and up-to-date. But, with Associated Content you could not do so.
- Low quality content place: Associated Content was not the place where you could find quality content, and reliable information. It faced a lot of criticism that focused on influencing search engines, rather than human readers. So, it was not deemed as a reliable source.
- The Company Shut-Down: Yahoo could not do well with managing Associated Content. So they decided to close the company on July 31, 2014.
Was Associated Content a scam?
Associated Content was definitely not a scam. It was a legitimate company that paid users for submitting their written content to Associated Contents website. The payment was good and most of people were satisfied with the company. The company generated revenue through it’s advertisements. It paid upfront, and got exclusive rights to the articles. So, it was a legitimate business.
Having said these, Associated Content was a good company that paid well for submitting articles. It was a great place to earn extra money from home. If you were successful at it, you could even make it a full time source of earning. It is unfortunate that it had a very short life.
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