60-Day Update: When Less Is More
Posted Feb 12th 2010 at 2:30PM
by Kristi Anderson (subscribe to Kristi Anderson's posts)
It's hard to believe that just two short months ago, Seed went online and invited all of you to join AOL's community of writers and photographers.
Since then, we've purchased about 1,000 articles and photo galleries -- or, about 125 pieces per week. And, we've already published about half of the more timely, news-oriented pieces. Our editorial team will publish the other half -- items tied to future events or perennial interests -- in coming weeks and months.
With every purchase, however, we've rejected about 10 submissions. This isn't a reflection of the quality of your work. Rather, it's because of the way our first assignments were set up -- where many people contribute to each project. We were happily surprised to receive the high level of interest and participation so quickly after launching Seed in beta mode. Yet, as writers ourselves, we know it's frustrating to feel like you're competing with countless others to get your work published.
As Saul, our programming director, pointed out, our collaboration to cover the South By Southwest music festival with AOL's music site Spinner.com shows what we think will be a better way for most Seed projects to work: In most cases, we'll assign projects to a single writer or photographer. Sometimes we'll post an open call asking for people to volunteer for certain projects. In others, we'll reach out to Seed writers we've worked with before, offering projects that suit their strengths. We're going to make it easier for editors and creators to work more directly with each other.
This is how we operate with our current freelance network of journalists, and so by extension this is how we plan to work with you. You have been following through in good faith on our assignments; the onus is now on us to set you up with assignments in a way that will help you succeed.
Some of you may have seen a few assignments in our listings that were meant for one particular creator -- our initial experiments with using Seed this way. Those distractions will go away, as we have developed a new way to keep private assignments out of public view. But know that these opportunities are not for some select few. The more we get to know your writing style and expertise, the more we will reach out to you with great projects.
We're also working with our editors to integrate more one-to-one assignments and set shorter assignment due dates, so that we can start connecting editors and creators for shorter-term, customized, timely projects. Sort of a 'less is more' approach -- less 'competition' for more timely assignments. Building the functionality to allow for this seamless and more frequent communication will take some time so until then, we'll rely more on email communication and call-for-participation posts, similar to how the Spinner SXSW project is set up.
This is an exciting time for Seed -- exploratory, heady, consuming. And we're happy you've joined us at the ground level for this great experiment that is just now starting to reflect our true vision. It takes a special breed to jump in with us during the early stages. By default, you have become our focus group, our ground-level influencers, our power-users. We're relying on you, and you're offering terrific feedback that we're incorporating into new enhancements. But, as you're probably aware, rolling out new features takes time, so we thank you in advance for your patience.
As always, if you have any questions or additional feedback during this time, keep it coming. Simply reply in the comments section of this post, or email us at contact@seed.com.
Since then, we've purchased about 1,000 articles and photo galleries -- or, about 125 pieces per week. And, we've already published about half of the more timely, news-oriented pieces. Our editorial team will publish the other half -- items tied to future events or perennial interests -- in coming weeks and months.
With every purchase, however, we've rejected about 10 submissions. This isn't a reflection of the quality of your work. Rather, it's because of the way our first assignments were set up -- where many people contribute to each project. We were happily surprised to receive the high level of interest and participation so quickly after launching Seed in beta mode. Yet, as writers ourselves, we know it's frustrating to feel like you're competing with countless others to get your work published.
As Saul, our programming director, pointed out, our collaboration to cover the South By Southwest music festival with AOL's music site Spinner.com shows what we think will be a better way for most Seed projects to work: In most cases, we'll assign projects to a single writer or photographer. Sometimes we'll post an open call asking for people to volunteer for certain projects. In others, we'll reach out to Seed writers we've worked with before, offering projects that suit their strengths. We're going to make it easier for editors and creators to work more directly with each other.
This is how we operate with our current freelance network of journalists, and so by extension this is how we plan to work with you. You have been following through in good faith on our assignments; the onus is now on us to set you up with assignments in a way that will help you succeed.
Some of you may have seen a few assignments in our listings that were meant for one particular creator -- our initial experiments with using Seed this way. Those distractions will go away, as we have developed a new way to keep private assignments out of public view. But know that these opportunities are not for some select few. The more we get to know your writing style and expertise, the more we will reach out to you with great projects.
We're also working with our editors to integrate more one-to-one assignments and set shorter assignment due dates, so that we can start connecting editors and creators for shorter-term, customized, timely projects. Sort of a 'less is more' approach -- less 'competition' for more timely assignments. Building the functionality to allow for this seamless and more frequent communication will take some time so until then, we'll rely more on email communication and call-for-participation posts, similar to how the Spinner SXSW project is set up.
This is an exciting time for Seed -- exploratory, heady, consuming. And we're happy you've joined us at the ground level for this great experiment that is just now starting to reflect our true vision. It takes a special breed to jump in with us during the early stages. By default, you have become our focus group, our ground-level influencers, our power-users. We're relying on you, and you're offering terrific feedback that we're incorporating into new enhancements. But, as you're probably aware, rolling out new features takes time, so we thank you in advance for your patience.
As always, if you have any questions or additional feedback during this time, keep it coming. Simply reply in the comments section of this post, or email us at contact@seed.com.
Reader Comments
(page 1 of 1)Can't say I particularly enjoy being a focus group. I'll be checking back hoping for progress.
Hi, Andrea. Your point is well taken. I will reach out you to offline.
I thought I'd offer a suggestion and I am sure I speak for many writers when I say this: allowing multiple writers to compete for the same title is frustrating and considered unprofessional and rude by many. I believe most of us are used to being able to take our time in order to produce the best quality piece. When we know we are competing it causes us to write faster and therefore produce a lower quality piece.
Why not allow only one person at a time to claim an article? If it is rejected by an editor the article goes back into the queue and the rejected writer cannot claim it again.
My first experience after signing up for Seed was a negative one because of this (I actually thought there was a technical error since there is no clear guidebook available explaining the process). I claimed an article, spent an hour starting it and then saw it was "closed". It left me disappointed and frustrated since I put time and effort into something that would never even be seen. If you want a diverse group of high quality writers this system will have to change, in my opinion. I've also read many negative remarks about Seed on the forums of other writing websites I belong to because of this fact, and thought I would share the information with you since you are obviously looking for feedback and seem to really be listening.
Thanks for your time.
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts here. I fully agree with all you say. The purpose of my post is to share that we are moving to a model that fully supports and offers worthwhile opportunities for writers like you.
You will be happy to hear -- as is re-iterated above and in a couple of our programming director Saul Hansell's posts -- that we are moving to more of a one-writer-per-assignment model. We will still put out calls for entries like, "Send us your best travel tips in 100 words or less," (as Gadling.com is doing) that will be available for many to respond to, but the real idea here is that we will structure future assignments more like we work with our current freelancers -- which is one-to-one.
You will also be happy to hear that we are working on a guidebook and more of a how-to process manual to aid you in understanding the Seed platform and processes better. These should be available in a few weeks.
I am also staying current on Seed sentiment being shared on other forums, and have been reaching out and responding accordingly to individual commenters in order to get more detailed feedback and clarify any concerns.
Thanks again for writing. If you would like to chat more, please let me know and we can set that up.
Thanks so much!
Kristi Anderson
Community Director, Seed.com
Rebecca makes some good points. You're losing excellent writers who are getting frustrated with Seed. Some good writers write for Demand Studios, for example. They were all excited about Seed, starting writing for Seed, got acceptances at first, but now a slew of rejections. Now many of them are saying they don't like Seed anymore, and they'd prefer to just stick with Demand Studios. For many writers, it's not worth it to write an article only to have it rejected.
I've tried to be a Seed cheerleader, and I still love the site, despite the fact that I've hit bad luck here as well, after having success with the site.
Hi Colleen!
Thanks for sharing your feedback. I was a freelancer for many years, so I fully understand where you, Rebecca and others are coming from.
The good news is that we are making many changes during this beta phase to make your experience more fulfilling -- and I'm very excited about these needed adjustments to the platform.
I forgot to mention to Rebecca above, but our current project with Spinner.com to cover the 2,000 bands performing at South By Southwest is set up as a one-to-one assignment opportunity, so I invite you to check out that here: http://www.spinner.com/2010/01/27/spinner-wants-you-to-cover-sxsw/.
I'm introducing a 'Seed Successes' feature tomorrow, Monday, 2/15, here on this blog that lists our Seed writers' published work. For example, last week, approximately 100 Seed writers had more than 100 articles published on more than 20 of our sites on the AOL network. You will be able to view these articles, so that you can see what we're publishing.
And, as I mentioned to Rebecca, we're preparing some helpful guides to provide more insight to our processes.
So, all in all, I'm excited about the rapid changes we're making. As I've mentioned above to Rebecca and also Andrea, if you would like to connect with me outside of this blog, I'd love to set up a time to do so.
Thanks again,
Kristi
"We'll reach out to Seed writers we've worked with before, offering projects that suit their strengths."
Regarding this, does the new approach mean that those of us who have not yet had an article accepted should call it a day, given that Seed editors haven't actually worked with us before? Or does having submitted count as having worked with Seed? I'm not trying to be confrontational; I just don't want to waste time if there's no chance. Thanks.
Hi Carol. Thanks for this comment. I can happily clarify. When we say that we'll be reaching out to Seed writers we've worked with before, this actually means you. It means that as you start to get work published, our editors will reach out to you to give you more of the same sorts of assignments where you're experiencing success.
We've made some big strides in the past few weeks to arm our editors with tools and resources on their part of the Seed interface, that will allow them to make more specific assignment requests and interact more directly with each of you.
So, all steps in the right direction in a short amount of time. Thanks for your patience, and I hope this explanation helps.
Best,
Kristi
I'm confused as to how this works at all. I wrote an article, completed it on time, and somewhere ti said it would be reviewed by Feb. 15. It's now the 19th and it's still pending approval. how long does it actually take to approve it and are there any rules regarding this>
It's hard to plan for a payment on a piece, if there is no clear path for this to happen.
Hi Julie. Our editors have 5-7 business days after the deadline to let you know the status of your assignment. We are encouraging our editors to set shorter due dates, so that you get a faster response.
If you have more questions like this, please email us at contact@seed.com -- our dedicated support queue that is staffed with help agents 24-7 to answer your inquiries.
Best,
Kristi
Seconding the above, about the frustration factor. I'm new to this- just been involved for a couple of weeks. I've had a couple of little things accepted, which is great.
But I just had something rejected, that I spent a total of several hours researching, interviewing, writing and editing. If that happened because somebody else already wrote the piece - I agree, that's pretty unprofessional, and I can't see spending much more of my time that way.
If it happened for a different reason though, I'd have no way to know, because there's no feedback whatsoever.
I feel like the extremely sketchy article descriptions (no indication of where it's being published, whether it's supposed to be a shopping guide, or an informative article, or a numbered list, or what) and the total lack of indication of what might make a rejected article acceptable, make the whole process seem like a pretty big gamble.
Considering that some of these projects look like they'll require extensive hours of interviewing and research, and considerable writing/rewriting time as well, I have to admit that that level of uncertainty makes me wonder if it's worth it.
Hi Erik. I see you've had several pieces purchased by a few of our sites. Congrats! To turn to your comment, you raise valid concerns on all fronts. This 'frustration factor,' as you call it, is something our editors deal with as well.
As a result, as you've probably seen me mention repeatedly throughout the blog and Academy comments, we've armed the editors with tools and resources to be able to make more specific assignment requests -- including the site the piece is for, details about exactly what they need for the piece (voice/tone, type of piece, etc.). This will help immensely. Additionally, they now have a mechanism for contacting you directly to work with you on edits and suggested re-writes.
As a writer myself, I'm thrilled to see these enhancements added so quickly after launch.
I hope this insight offers you some hope in our system. As always, if you'd like to chat with me offline about Seed and what you're experiencing, please reach out with this request to contact@seed.com, and we can arrange it.
Best,
Kristi
Is is possible that this shift in format is taking assignements off this list before they are due? I have now had three assignments disappear from the list after I'd started drafting, researching, and lining up resources, which is frustrating for me and my sources.
Hi Cate. First, congrats! I see you've had several pieces purchased. To answer your question, yes, what you have experienced with disappearing assignments is a known issue -- though it's not tied to any shift in format. We apologize for this inconvenience.