Well, to say that my jaw hit the floor when I read about big AC/Yahoo! deal is an understatement. As a contributor, I guess I didn't pay much attention to the business side. Just give me my upfront (or not) and send the page view bonus payments on time... that was pretty much my attitude.
I've been a Contributor with AC for just over 3 years. In that time period, I've gotten some nice upfront payments ($10 and above) and some as little as a buck. I've even submitted content for no upfront if I felt that it would bring in the views, and thus pad my page view bonus monthly.
However, I'm very uneasy and judging from the comments in the numerous threads in the forum, I am not alone. Particularly of concern is a news report that states that AC will close the site in 3Q 2010. As you may know, that's really not that far off since we are half way through 2Q 2010. The staff posting in the forum about the buyout was at first uplifting. But that was before news reports - ominous ones - about closing the site began to get noticed by us Contributors.
What will become of AC? I'm sure we'll be the last to know. Unfortunately, AC has never really been great at communication (perhaps Yahoo could remedy that?) and we learned about the buy out along with the rest of the world. No mention of exactly how we will be affected has been announced; there have been no real assurances. I mean, the FAQ notice we were linked to in the forum is all peaches and cream. Yet news reports are saying the site will close. Who do we believe?
Of particular concern is our content. Many contributors are now making extra efforts to keep digital copies of their content, particularly the non-exclusive content, so that they can perhaps put it up on another site in the future. For the time being, I'm trying not to panic (too much). The page view bonus system is of great concern since we earn residual income on past work. If the site closes, it could mean our residual income stream dries up too.
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