Here's another spin on the phenomenon of crowdsourcing, which is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.
High Gear Media in Palo Alto, Calif., publishes more than 1,000 stories online per month on a network of 100+ websites, all focused on automotive content. That puts High Gear in a unique position, says community manager Eric Berlin, as it both publishes more stories than any other company when it comes to automotive content, and also harnesses a mix of full time paid staff, unpaid contributors, and contract writers who write for it under a revenue sharing program.
Berlin says High Gear has a community of more than 250 writers who do not get paid, but participate for a mix of reasons including participation in a community of passionate automotive writers/enthusiasts, promotion and exposure, community tools, and contests (they have given away things like Apple iPads, trips to test drive the Tesla Roadster, and a mix of cash and prizes for participating).
"In our revenue sharing program, writers get paid a minimum monthly payment which may be surpassed when revenue targets are triggered for assigned websites."
High Gear saves a lot of money using this model. In the publishing world today, staff = overhead, so High Gear keeps costs down through crowdsourcing. Berlin notes, "Our structure of having editorial staff produce premium content supplemented by 'pro-am' writers allows us to effectively produce a high volume of quality stories that serve the huge audience of automotive consumers and enthusiasts online."
Most of High Gear's unpaid and revenue sharing program writers use its open blogging platform, a proprietary content management system. Stories may be submitted around the clock from around the world. Once submitted, stories enter an editing moderation queue, where editors determine the best website on the network for publication.
Berlin says the program is working out well. "We are extremely excited about our publishing program as our community of automotive writers is growing along with our output of high quality automotive stories. Our plans are to increase the value for all writers who participate by writing about cars for High Gear Media. This includes more and better community and profile tools, enhanced promotional and marketing efforts, and new upcoming contests and community initiatives this year."