A New Addiction

The boyfriend has gotten me hooked. I confess. He found me techno-crack.

I've been doing more writing lately and publishing online, mostly on a site called Associated Content. Most of the articles there are very consumer-oriented, a lot of how-to articles and product reviews. I've only spent a little bit of time looking at the other work on the site, mostly as research.

This week he showed me thisisby.us. It's an unmoderated site, and any potential payment is driven by page views and ratings. On the one hand, the monetary payoff seems likely to be considerably delayed, but the writers on the site are active readers of its content, so the audience response supplies immediate gratification.

What's more, some of the postings are quite good. There are rough spots here and there in what's otherwise interesting work. Admittedly, some of it is a bit self-indulgent, but so far it's very nice to see that in a self-regulated system, the cream really does rise. I have seen other similar sites, but so far this is the most interesting. The commercial print world has consolidated to a point that it's difficult for beginning writers to get their work into the public eye, and it's been argued that the Internet will provide a remedy. Until now I haven't seen places where that's happening in a way that showcases much new talent worth seeing, and I'm interested in watching it develop.