Jackie Danicki

I am a huge, huge fan of the Techdirt crew and the work they do. I have happily flown 20+ hours round-trip to take part in their Techdirt Greenhouse event, and will do so for the next one (whenever it is). Now, the Techdirt guys have launched what sounds like a pretty cool new business, which lets blogging experts make money by blogging responses to companies’ queries.

“Increasingly, there are a lot of smart and insightful bloggers offering up analysis and opinion” in their specialties, Masnick says. Why not give them a way to make extra money by answering specific questions posed by a company, and at the same time give companies some input that would cost less than hiring an analyst or consulting firm?

Bloggers who want to do this essentially nominate themselves on the Insight Community site. Their blogs become their resume and application. Techdirt first approves each blogger it allows into the system.

If a company has a question — “Would there be a market for a robotic Mariachi band?” — it can send the question into the system. The company name stays shielded from the bloggers. The bloggers respond, and in turn their names are shielded from the company. The company can rate the responses, and as certain bloggers rise to the top, they get more work sent their way and get paid premiums for their responses.

Masnick says bloggers will make about $50 to $100 for each response they write. The responses would be about blog post length.

I love that a company finally figured out that ads aren’t the future of blogging revenue, but I’m not surprised it was Techdirt who have brought a fantastic concept like this to fruition. Awesome.

USA Today link via Chris Heuer

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