RE: Death knell for quality content?

["Lauren" <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net>]

> From: Will Sansbury

> Lauren wrote:
> > Successful writing is not about the writer or the content, it 
> > is about writing what the reader wants.  It doesn't matter if 
> > the reader wants poor quality, the reader is the customer and 
> > the customer is always right.
> 
> God help us!
> 
> My job is to understand what the reader is attempting to do 
> and to give them
> the resources that best help them do that task. Often, what 
> best serves the
> reader and what he says he wants are incompatible.
> 
> My value to the companies I work for is in my ability to 

I didn't think that I needed to specify that I was referring to successful
writing for "online publications, like Helium," as that was the subject of
my discussion.  Writing for technical publications and business publications
is not the same and not really a part of the discussion about why Helium can
be successful with poorly-written articles.

This thread has gone into an apples versus oranges type of discussion.
Successful online publications do not follow the same rules or models as
printed publications and they do not need to follow those rules and models.

There appears to be a confusion evolving here because web sites have
"articles."  The content of online publications should not be confused with
printed content.  The purpose of a web site such as Helium is to sell ads
and not to provide quality content.  The purpose of a printed periodical is
to attract paying subscribers and to sell ads.  If people view poorly
written articles on a web site and drive up ad revenue, then the site is
successful and so is the writing because it attracted the web site visitors
who earned Helium its ad revenue.

There is nothing about Helium that is about quality writing.  Successful
writing on Helium is about page views and ad sales.  That's the model and
that's the trend for many new web sites today.  Confusing this model with
that of printed media only leads to unresolvable discourse because the two
are as related as apples and oranges.

Lauren


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