CNET Tests Pay-for-Performance Journalism

During a recent interview with Podtech's Maryam Scoble, Mary Jo Foley revealed that ZDNet has a payment scheme in place that rewards its bloggers based on the number of clicks their posts get. Foley recently left Ziff Davis to become a free agent. Her primary gig involves writing a well-read blog on Microsoft for ZDNet, which CNET owns. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.)

Foley says she likes the pay-for-performance model because "It rewards people... who do a lot of work to make sure that their blogs are popular, which is what I do." Foley's writing has long been a must-read for keeping up with all things Microsoft.

ZDNet's pay-for-performance blogging system raises some interesting questions. For example, will a blogger favor writing a sensational post that is likely to get more clicks over one that perhaps is less sexy and is based on, say, a press release? News value and clicks often go together, but as we've seen on collaborative sites like digg, sensationalist rumors sometimes are more popular.

Many of the ZDNet blogs are written by veteran journalists turned bloggers. So, I don't anticipate that the performance based compensation changes their ethics one iota. Bloggers such as Foley, Dan Farber and David Berlind have been around a long time and they are highly ethical. They have a nose for news. And news is often what gets clicks. The newer voices on the site may have a taller trust hurdle to climb given this revelation.

Still, the fact that ZDNet bloggers are compensated based on traffic raises an eyebrow for me. If you look at their list of the most popular posts, so far there's nothing out of the ordinary. However, this system may make it harder for smaller players to get coverage on ZDNet. One hopes they have a set of standards in place that distributes the editorial beyond to the big brands, such as Apple.

ZDNet would be wise to help shed some more transparency into this test to ensure that they are completely divorced from efforts like PayPerPost.

Tags: ZDNet, CNET

Comments

[GregC]

Business 2.0 recently started doing the same. Not sure how it's working out, but it seems an obvious move. Writers/journalists/bloggers are always competing for the most high-profile beat and the biggest audience, so why not further incentivize it? That said, I think it's fine for blogs/columns opinion, but not for straight news.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2006/10/13/the-business-20-of-jou_e_31645.html

[chrisco]

I think we're going to see a *lot* more of this in 2007 (and beyond, of course). It's only natural. -Chris (www.buzzpal.com)

[Dan Farber]

Steve,
ZDNet pays its bloggers a ad revenue share based on page views. Editorially, we are aware of the potential for a blogger to try to go for page views with a more tabloid kind of story or headline rather than what meets our journalistic standards. We monitor our blogs for any posts that are clearly pandering for page views.

You say: "Still, the fact that ZDNet bloggers are compensated based on traffic raises an eyebrow for me. If you look at their list of the most popular posts, so far there's nothing out of the ordinary. However, this system may make it harder for smaller players to get coverage on ZDNet. One hopes they have a set of standards in place that distributes the editorial beyond to the big brands, such as Apple."

Just like any newspaper, news operation or blog network, we cover a broad range of topics. We have over 30 bloggers who focus on different topics--SOA, Microsft, open source, Apple, Google, ERP software, processors, SaaS, etc.--who expertise on the topic and their reputations to protect. As in any other publication, they focus on they we think will be of interest to readers (people interested in the intersection of technology and business, the tech industry and personal tech), and hope that they attract readers, which generates page views.
People were interested in Apple news this week, and we covered it extensively and with some timely and insightful posts. We also had dzens of other posts on other topics that weren't popular but useful to a subset of readers.

Our reputation and integrity are most important to us ...if you see any post you believe are not appropriate let me know.

[Phil Wainewright]

Shock! Horror! Media people getting compensated based on the popularity of their output!

Whatever next? PR companies being paid according to the coverage their clients get?

[Alan Graham]

I recently started as one of these ZD bloggers.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer

I've been a long time O'Reilly writer and blogger and I have never pandered or written sensational content for attention. I always write what I want. I've even publicly called it out on CNET in the past when I felt a writer was baiting for clicks:

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2004/01/a_grain_of_salt_with_your_cnet.html

Back when I wrote that in 2004, Dan Farber (who didn't write the piece and I had never met), personally wrote to me in appreciation of my piece. We had a nice dialogue and I even wrote a public thank you for doing so. I had a lot of respect for Dan and when he recently asked me to write for ZD...I didn't even have to think about it.

When Dan and I talked about me taking over the Web 2.0 Explorer blog on Ziff...I was told that I'd be paid a share of revenue. But to his credit he never suggested writing anything sensational in order to drive clicks. In fact when I told them my ideas to write more in-depth content, and have less known guest bloggers, he gave me their full support. I don't expect to drive tons of traffic right out of the gate and I expect it will take some time to get up to speed.

I want to generate traffic on the quality of my writing and delivering interesting and thought provoking content and guests. I would like to think the market would self control/correct itself. We all know there are some big name bloggers/writers out there who like to bait people and have even admitted to it on camera. I agree that that is one way to generate clicks. But we also know that there are a lot of fantastic bloggers out there who generate a lot of traffic simply because they are great writers with something valuable to say. I think sharing revenue with the people who create the content shows that Ziff values and rewards their talent. I've written for other publishers who don't pay anything.

And btw...I think it is important to note that any blogger out there that runs ads on their site is doing a rev share knowing that the more traffic...the more $$$. I don't see this as an issue unique to blog networks or large publishers. You can vote with your eyeballs...if you find a site that doesn't serve you...then you have the power to go somewhere else.

Alan Graham

[SV Sleuth]

I don't see the problem. Most of the ZDNet blogs are actually copies of the author's personal blogs.

Bloggers are individual publishers. Publishers engage in revenue sharing deals.

The ZDNet setup is nothing more than a revenue sharing deal. Besides, similar blog-syndication has been going on for years. Just because ZDNet is now jumping on board doesn't make it new.

[Stephen Howard-Sarin]

"SV Sleuth", the content on ZDNet Blogs is 99% original and exclusive to ZDNet.

We will, on rare occasions, pick up and run with content from a contributor that has appeared (or will appear) elsewhere, but that is the exception rather than the rule. ZDNet is not into blog syndication; we're a blog destination.