Forum Moderators: not2easy
Moral: very few things in life are truly free!
not true at all, WebmasterWorld is full of content that was provided free - freely and willingly, it is nearly all original and some of it is astonishingly good quality.
if you want quality content for free you need to think outside the box.
Typically, content that is "free" is not "original", and vice versa.
not true at all, WebmasterWorld is full of content that was provided free....it is nearly all original and some of it is astonishingly good quality.
Eliz.
however ... WebmasterWorld is the best known website within its niche, additionally the forum method of getting 'free' content is used all over the web and is very effective, there are many, many good examples of this.
there are many other good and well used examples all over the web of quality original free content - amazon reviews are another good example.
Looking at this from a News perspective - a wonderful and never-ending source of free content - if you are in a sector where company/product information is relevant to your audience, get yourself on as many public relations mailing lists as you can. Simply locate the Press/Media Relations Department via the websites of the companies concerned.
Press releases are not solely provided by those seeking to market products or services...
Any sector (even niches) can be subdivided into further elements. Behind all these are trade bodies, government departments, regulatory authorities, user groups, joint committees which link many of the niches together, and many others.
Then there are the national, regional and local divisions of all of the above. They all have news and will undoubtedly have a PR mailing list that the news seeker can be added to. Therein lies an almost inexhaustable source of free content.
You could be in any sector or niche you care to mention and I bet that with a bit of lateral thought you'd find plenty of 'free' content in the form of press releases. Of course, how much of the 'free content' from these sources you choose to use is entirely down to you.
Syzygy
US Newswire is one source of press releases, there are others. Often news.google will have press releases (look for the source of the article). You can also go to the web sites of organizations and politicians and you will usually find a section for press releases (often under About/Press Room).
One way to add value and make it interesting is to find opposite viewpooints and quote from both. For example:
Congressman Blowhard proposed increasing sales taxes on widgets that are larger than three pounds. here you quote from his press release. The Widget Makers Society responded with the arguement now quote from their release.
With a little bit of writing and some creativity you can come up with an article with little work (but some digging).
For science news, NASA is a good source of astronomy and space information. Also the U.S. Census Bureau has some interesting trivia in their daily feature found on U.S. Newswire (often with links to additional info that you can use.) [did you know that today is Potato Feast Day?]
Thing is, for every 100 buyers who love our stuff, inevitably one buyer is always dissatisfied with the exact same stuff everyone else praises to the moon. There's always some curmudgeon, or loony who is not only unhappy, but angry too. And even the ones who love our stuff always want more more more..."can't you gold-plate it? Why can't you peel us that grape?" etc.
I can't let those guys rant away on my site, they'll spook away all the first time buyers.
not true at all, WebmasterWorld is full of content that was provided free - freely and willingly, it is nearly all original and some of it is astonishingly good quality.
I think that posting message (content) on this forum does not automatically waives all your right for this content. And if some quotation is done or the whole ontent is taken at least the reference for the author should be placed.
WebmasterWorld doesn't process its content (other than minimal TOS editing for stuff like profanity). It just presents all content as-is, freely volunteered by its writers, and always attributes the sources as you can verify right here in this very thread, for example.
We solicit post-sale followup feedback.... We do post those onsite... as 'Customer Testimonials". ...for every 100 buyers who love our stuff, inevitably one buyer is always dissatisfied... There's always some curmudgeon, or loony... I can't let those guys rant away on my site, they'll spook away all the first time buyers.
Excuse my editing, but you can't solicit customer feedback and then complain that 1% have a problem and have provided you with stuff you don't like. You asked..:-)
Are customers allowed to post on the site? Or do you solicit comment and then post at your own discretion? If the former, can it not be filtered/pre-moderated? And how does this tie-in with the additional content you want to source?
Syzygy
topr8, WebmasterWorld content is NOT FREE. Look at the bottom of every page and you'll see who owns the comments they post.
All trademarks and copyrights held by respective owners.
Member comments are owned by the poster.
topr8, WebmasterWorld content is NOT FREE. Look at the bottom of every page and you'll see who owns the comments they post.
for those that didn't understand my post, even though luckychucky obviously knew what i meant as he has already explained it, i'll spell it out simply ...
if you run a forum then people will provide content for you willingly and freely - hence it is free content for the FORUM OWNER.
in no way am i suggesting that you can lift the content from here at WebmasterWorld or any other forum to use on another site ...
i was suggesting the original poster think a little outside the box, i say this,if you want free content, don't go off looking for stuff to cut and paste from somewhere else on the web, think of a method that will make other people go out of their way to come to you and write fresh content direct onto your site.
here's a tip, everybody has got an opinion about something and most people like to express it, you merely need to give them the opportunity to do so, how you go about this is up to you, but if you want original free content then it's a pretty good concept to start yourself off with.
