So let me make some comments.

1) yes, it is to the writers detriment that they get paid zero while SA makes loot off ads. BUT, wirters get exposure they never would have before. When I had my own site, I was getting 2000 readers a day, at most. With SA, I get hundreds of thousands more a month and it costs me nothing. So to people who complain about SA, I say: well, start your own site, then

2) Quality of writers. Clearly, I am biased. I will not make the crazy claim that I am one of the “good writers” as that is not for me to decide but my readers, many of whom personally get in touch with me and like both my ideas, efforts, and non consensus opinion. In fact, I have had SEVERAL buy side people invest off my ideas and MAKE REAL MONEY.

3) SA has its own survival of fittest model — good writers get comments in the section and those don’t. SA decides what and when it will accept contributions. When it chooses to publish any old opinion, and it sucks, you will see hatred manifest in the comments area…so more likely than not, that conributor will fall to the wayside..

4) In terms of “payoffs” — No doodahs is PLAIN WRONG in classifying all writers are no skill wanna bees. A) there are some excellent writers on the site with skin in the game. I use SA often to get idea generation and non consensus opinion….B) you mention that leveraging SA to get a “Street job” is non existent. AGAIN, you are WRONG. I can speak to this personally. After Jackson hooked up the Yahoo! Finance deal, you had real life PMs and buy siders checking in to the site regularly. No matter what anyone says, people on the buy side still read Yahoo- we have Bloombergs, Reuters, Facset, Cap IQ, but Yahoo! is top portal for basic info when you need it quick. That said — I had TWO buy siders I interviewed with in the Spring of 2007 comment on my SA articles, which they got off Yahoo! Finance and USED for thier stock investment process. In fact, being early on fertilizers, and having it published in early 2007 on SA enabled me to land an offer from a great firm for my summer internship, although other factors likely played a role.

In sum: SA has its value. If you dont like it, start your own site. In the meantime, be grateful and dont categorize everyone who writes on it as someone with commoditized opinions. Web 2.0 is about giving everything away, anyways. you should know that, guys…

So let me make some comments.

1) yes, it is to the writers detriment that they get paid zero while SA makes loot off ads. BUT, wirters get exposure they never would have before. When I had my own site, I was getting 2000 readers a day, at most. With SA, I get hundreds of thousands more a month and it costs me nothing. So to people who complain about SA, I say: well, start your own site, then

2) Quality of writers. Clearly, I am biased. I will not make the crazy claim that I am one of the “good writers” as that is not for me to decide but my readers, many of whom personally get in touch with me and like both my ideas, efforts, and non consensus opinion. In fact, I have had SEVERAL buy side people invest off my ideas and MAKE REAL MONEY.

3) SA has its own survival of fittest model — good writers get comments in the section and those don’t. SA decides what and when it will accept contributions. When it chooses to publish any old opinion, and it sucks, you will see hatred manifest in the comments area…so more likely than not, that conributor will fall to the wayside..

4) In terms of “payoffs” — No doodahs is PLAIN WRONG in classifying all writers are no skill wanna bees. A) there are some excellent writers on the site with skin in the game. I use SA often to get idea generation and non consensus opinion….B) you mention that leveraging SA to get a “Street job” is non existent. AGAIN, you are WRONG. I can speak to this personally. After Jackson hooked up the Yahoo! Finance deal, you had real life PMs and buy siders checking in to the site regularly. No matter what anyone says, people on the buy side still read Yahoo- we have Bloombergs, Reuters, Facset, Cap IQ, but Yahoo! is top portal for basic info when you need it quick. That said — I had TWO buy siders I interviewed with in the Spring of 2007 comment on my SA articles, which they got off Yahoo! Finance and USED for thier stock investment process. In fact, being early on fertilizers, and having it published in early 2007 on SA enabled me to land an offer from a great firm for my summer internship, although other factors likely played a role.

In sum: SA has its value. If you dont like it, start your own site. In the meantime, be grateful and dont categorize everyone who writes on it as someone with commoditized opinions. Web 2.0 is about giving everything away, anyways. you should know that, guys…

The weakness of SA’s model has always been the content providers’ reimbursement. They pay their editors, programmers, web server, and transcribing service, but they don’t pay their authors? There are only three types of authors who would knowingly participate in that kind of plan:

(1) those who are monetizing or have the potential to monetize really expensive services, like investment management, and this really does make economic sense; some of these folks will have actual trading (“investing”) ability, but not all of them or even most of them;

(2) those desperately auditioning for a writing job, which probably doesn’t make too much sense, because if they’ll contribute for free, why would anyone HIRE them? I would think any wannabe that’s trying to audition for a trading job at SA is deeply misguided! The presence of known opinions and styles, and a long web presence, is going to be a BIG detriment when shopping for a Street job. Writing’s the only possible job payoff from participation, and the odds are slim to none (Slim having just left town). Most of these types are no-skill wannabes; and

(3) those that want to get famous and don’t mind effectively paying someone to make them famous, again, mostly no-skill wannabes.

The unknowing participants would include those who haven’t given any thought to the economics of the arrangement (which included me when I was there in 2006).

I agree with your assessment that the best way to build a brand and a reputation isn’t with volume, but is instead through backing up your skills by constantly disclosing trades and results, and through developing an independent voice that people have to SELECT to hear, rather than going to an aggregator and getting drowned out in the noise.

The weakness of SA’s model has always been the content providers’ reimbursement. They pay their editors, programmers, web server, and transcribing service, but they don’t pay their authors? There are only three types of authors who would knowingly participate in that kind of plan:

(1) those who are monetizing or have the potential to monetize really expensive services, like investment management, and this really does make economic sense; some of these folks will have actual trading (“investing”) ability, but not all of them or even most of them;

(2) those desperately auditioning for a writing job, which probably doesn’t make too much sense, because if they’ll contribute for free, why would anyone HIRE them? I would think any wannabe that’s trying to audition for a trading job at SA is deeply misguided! The presence of known opinions and styles, and a long web presence, is going to be a BIG detriment when shopping for a Street job. Writing’s the only possible job payoff from participation, and the odds are slim to none (Slim having just left town). Most of these types are no-skill wannabes; and

(3) those that want to get famous and don’t mind effectively paying someone to make them famous, again, mostly no-skill wannabes.

The unknowing participants would include those who haven’t given any thought to the economics of the arrangement (which included me when I was there in 2006).

I agree with your assessment that the best way to build a brand and a reputation isn’t with volume, but is instead through backing up your skills by constantly disclosing trades and results, and through developing an independent voice that people have to SELECT to hear, rather than going to an aggregator and getting drowned out in the noise.