Mitch
Joel notes that loads of people work for free on sites like
Huffington Post just for the exposure. (It’s a little like summer
interning.) And he wonders if all this ‘good exposure’ might lead to a
glut.
That’s why we need editors, either human or algorithmic. Successful media sites figure out how to promote the popular
stuff and bury the rest. HuffPost, as I wrote a couple weeks ago,
monitors the performance of stories hour by hour, and optimizes the page
to boost traffic.
And the free laborers’ whose work gets buried?
They’re not necessarily losers. If they cover niche subjects, their
HuffPost pieces will pop up high in search results (because HuffPost
optimizes for search, too). That way they find their niche audiences
without sapping everyone else’s attention. (My 2009 BusinessWeek story
on free labor.)
