Jake Wengroff Global Director, Corporate Communications Frost & Sullivan

Yahoo’s $90 million purchase yesterday of “content farm” Associated Content has given respectability to a business concept that has been excoriated by the mainstream media for the last few years. Additionally, the deal will shed light on this new business model and serve as a key event in the saga of the ever-changing media industry. Journalism will forever be changed as well. 

Content farms, or mills, such as Associated Content, Demand Media/Demand Studios, and AOL’s Seed, aim to crowd-source articles, images, audio, and video, and then distribute such material to a network of media companies hungry for content to attract visitors–and advertisers–to their sites.

Not a bad idea–and it certainly serves to provide work for the thousands of currently unemployed or underemployed journalists and freelance writers. According to the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s the State of the News Media annual report on American journalism, about 25% of the industry’s news workforce has been lost since 2000.

But there’s a catch:  Freelancers are paid per article or multimedia piece delivered–regardless of article length, file size, or resources required. Some of the content requested is original and produced exclusively by the freelancer for the farm; other content is produced and then syndicated to a multitude of sites. The exclusive vs. syndicated content decision is decided by the farm depending on its clients’ needs. (Of course, the freelancer is not allowed to resell or republish the content on his or her own.)

Pricing has been a thorny issue in this new media paradigm. A spokesperson for Associated Content indicated that, for publishers seeking to beef up their site’s content, articles and multimedia are available–and plentiful.  There are minimums, however. Associated Content requires a minimum commitment of 200 original pieces, or 1,000 syndicated pieces; prices range from $85 to $125 for custom pieces and $12 to $15 for syndicated articles. Price is dependent on level of commitment, according to the company.

This, of course, means that the payout to the freelance writer, designer, artist, photographer, or filmmaker is abysmal at best. While Associated Content boasts that it has 380,000 contributors, the average price paid per article is less than $50.

Gone are the days of freelance journalists earning $1 per word–the National Writer’s Union or Writers Guild of America suggested guidance for freelance writers for at least a decade. Journalists, writers, and other media professionals may ask themselves: Is this worth it?  One can only imagine the quality issues associated with a 500-word article for which the writer was only paid $15.