Associated Content's Unethical Business Practices

On the Internet nowadays, the new slogan is that "content is king". With that in mind, one should take a closer look at companies that have sprung up over the last few years. Leading the pack of content related sites is Associated Content. As many of you already reading this know, Associated Content is a website in which you can upload content written by non other than yourself. You can even earn some extra money from page views as well as upfront payments.

However, many content producers do not actually see what goes on behind the curtains. So, I decided to write this article to enlighten you. Firstly, Associated content says that producing content with them will give you great exposure. However, this, in my opinion is not true. This is because we have to do all the work ourselves. Either we mass email our contact list or promote our content on Facebook of our own accord. If we do not do so, we stand to lose in terms of page views and hence performance payments.

Secondly, when one looks at the amount possibly generated from our content, one will realise that our content could make quite a bit of money and yet we receive a fraction of this. For instance, a well established website like Associated Content will have proper google Adsense Ad selection techniques. What this means is that they generate income from the number of view to your content pages, giving you a small fraction of what they earn.

Thirdly, with Associated Content, there are three different forms of selling your rights to them. The most popular choice would be "Exclusive" because it enables content producers to "be eligible for higher upfront payments". After this choice has been selected, and the content is published, content producers basically have no rights to their own published piece. And all this for a meagre five dollars or so.

The next choice of publication is "Non-exclusive" which is almost like the first but instead of selling your rights to your article, the rights are shared with Associated Content. However, to me, this creates a huge problem. For instance, even though you can rightfully publish your own content on your blog, it will be deemed as duplicate content by search engines and hence, your blog will be penalized. Lastly, and certainly the least, you can opt for the third type of publication which only generates for you the meagre alms from page views which is usually 1.50 per thousand views. Slightly little don't you think?

Lastly, I feel that Associated Content should be more transparent in that they should share with us how much our articles actually earn. I feel that we should get a larger slice in terms of profits from Associated content because after all, it is our hard work which are garnering the page views and hence the revenue.

However, in researching about the unethical business practices of Associated Content, I have come across many who are gladly participating in this business. Whether as a living, to earn some extra cash or just out of fun, these people make up Associated Content and are very gladly doing so. Is this a classic case of "ignorance is bliss?" Or is this something much more than that where people just love writing and the bonus of getting paid for doing so is just a plus point. I myself am having quite a blast writing articles especially on controversial topics such as this. Hence, in conclusion, even though I feel that Associated Content has some unethical business practices, I am a proud content producer myself and wouldn't stop doing it for the world.