Helium Responds To My Critique Of Their Service

Last month, I blogged about the Helium Marketplace a resource for writers who are interested in making money by writing for various companies who are looking for people to author specific articles. If their article is chosen, the writer could make a competitive rate for their effort.

When I wrote, “The Helium Marketplace: Don’t Make This Terrible Mistake!, ” I warned everyone that what they were about to read was a negative review of this service. I wanted to establish the tone in advance to prepare people for what I was about to say.

You can read what I wrote to understand my position. However, I will say that a representative from Helium contacted me to say that some of the information was wrong and/or misleading. Elizabeth Streeter, who is a Business Development Associate with Helium, contacted me to personally to rebut some of what I wrote. In the interest of giving Helium a chance to have their viewpoint known, I am republishing the bulk of Ms. Streeter’s response here. You can pick it up after the line break.

---

I read your review (thumbs down) on the Helium Marketplace:http://www.matthewkeegan.com/2007/08/23/the-helium-marketplace-dont-make-this-terrible-mistake/I tried to create a Netscape account so that I could comment on the story, but the comments feature doesn�t seem to be working. I thought it best to reach out to you directly. There is some misinformation in your review and I�m hoping that you will consider revising it or doing a follow-up.

First off, you write: �On August 22, 2007, I took a look at the Helium Marketplace to see their list of publishers. According to TechCrunch, the initial 14 publishers will mushroom to over 1000 sometime in September.� This was not a good day at work for me; I read that article and my stomach sunk. TechCrunch misreported or mistyped; we are aiming for 1000 TITLES not publishers sometime in September. As you can clearly see (and pointed out to your audience) we are not even remotely close to 1000 publishers. The day that article came out, I panicked a little and then hoped that it wouldn�t have any large ripple effects. We are getting quite a bit of press, at Helium, and I hoped that their typo would prove minor in the long run. Truthfully, I expect we�ll have close to 700 titles by September�s end. There are deals in the pipeline that may give us the 1000 we are aiming for, but it may have to become October�s goal. The point being, this was an error on TechCrunch�s part.

Secondly, you write: ��The publisher will select the article they like best. Only the selected articles will earn revenue for the writer.� This means that if a writer spends 2 to 3 hours (or more) crafting a well researched and expertly written article, they have no guarantee of getting paid. In other words, all the work you have done has been wasted � many topics are too specific to sell elsewhere � and you are left uncompensated.� I believe you may have been misinformed or have not clearly understood Helium�s User Agreement. While it is true that the publishers� select which articles (if any) they wish to purchase for the advertised fee, all remaining articles do hold the potential to earn the writer revenue at Helium. Helium�s business model is that we share a portion of the advertising revenue generated on our site with our writers. Thousands of dollars have been paid out to Helium writers (not including Marketplace competitions) and we are looking to push that number above $1 million. Here is a brief description of how writers earn revenue on Helium:

Helium offers a fair and trusted marketplace for its members and pays for articles based on the value of their contribution. The value of each article is determined by three market drivers:

* How good is the article? Quality matters! Higher-ranked articles will earn more money than lower-ranked articles.
* How many readers are interested in the article�s topic? Some subjects will draw more total views than others.
* How much will advertisers pay to advertise on the subject? Each subject attracts a different set of advertisers who pay a different amount to be associated with a subject. For example, subjects in the area of personal finance will draw a higher ad rate than subjects like chess.

These three factors are combined to calculate the earnings to each member for each of their articles.

Articles ranked higher by members earn more than lower-ranked articles. Quality counts. Articles ranked in the top five out of 50 articles are read more often than articles ranked lower. They are deemed more valuable to Helium members.

http://corp.helium.com/help/benefits_earning

So, you see, the remaining articles that are not outright purchased by our Marketplace publishers go into the various writers� portfolios and continue to earn them cash indefinitely. Another thing that happens that can earn a writer cash is that we offer the sale of non-exclusive licenses to pre-existing articles off of our main site. Every time a license to publish is purchased, the Helium writer is paid 80% of that licensing fee. Marketplace articles, if sold to the Marketplace �publisher�, are only sold once. If the article a writer composed for Marketplace is not purchased by the sponsoring publisher, their article now has the chance to be licensed repeatedly through Helium; earning them cash every time!

Regarding the expired articles, we leave them up there for a period of time for two reasons:

1. So the publisher has time to review all of the returns
2. So we may showcase the selected (winning) writers to our community, once chosen

Lastly, you also write:

�Mark Hamilton, a journalism instructor from Vancouver, noted on his Notes from a Teacher blog that writers for Helium give them complete and perpetual rights for contributed content. In other words, if you submit your articles to Helium�s marketplace you don�t own them.� Matt, this statement could not be further from the truth. What Helium �sells� publishers is a �license�. It is stated very clearly in our Helium User�s Agreement that our writers keep their copyright. If a writer sells an article through our Helium Marketplace, they are agreeing to give Helium an exclusive license to the article, but they still maintain copyright and so, technically, the writers still �own� their articles.

Marketplace is young, only having just come out of a pilot program a few weeks ago. Helium is going to be a year old in a few weeks. I apologize for the length of this email, but I truly believe that a lot of the information in your article is misleading or untrue and we would greatly appreciate the opportunity to help you educate you viewers and readers. If you have any questions about the Marketplace service I am more than happy to speak with you directly. Please feel free to phone me at [number removed].

The Helium Marketplace truly IS a great place for writers! New writers, seasoned writers, professional freelancers, ALL writers. I hope that you will come back and give it another look and consider revising or following up on your story.

---

I’ll reserve my comments until after I have a chance to look at Ms. Streeter’s claims. Feel free to include your comments about the Helium Marketplace or Helium in general.

The Helium Marketplace: Don’t Make This Terrible Mistake!

Please be forewarned: the following is my “thumbs down” review of the Helium Marketplace, a place where aspiring writers can market their wares in hopes of obtaining paid employment. Why I am I warning you ahead of time? Mostly for one reason: so that you will lay your guard down long enough to hear me out. No, the Helium Marketplace isn’t some evil plot, but the pitfalls of this freelancing venue certainly outweigh the advantages. Care to read on?

What Is Helium?

Helium is a user generated content site where contributors can submit articles and receive payment for their writings based on article popularity. Peer review of these articles from other writers is what determines their value; the higher the article is rated the more reviews it receives and the better the payout per article. Readers can view view Helium articles for free.

A few days ago TechCrunch discussed Helium’s marketplace which is what piqued my interest. According to TechCrunch, Helium has more than 69,000 writers who have produced more than 400,000 articles since the site was launched in October 2006.

The Helium Marketplace

At first glance, the idea of having a marketplace on Helium where companies/individuals can purchase articles seems like a good idea. Guru, eLance, and some other sites provide this service, therefore with a hefty pool of writers to draw from a marketplace makes good business sense.

However, before you sign up there are some things you must know:

• Articles are purchased from $16 on up with Helium claiming that some articles will fetch $100 or more. For their part Helium takes a 20% cut.

• Writers can view each publisher�s link to see the article titles needed, publisher deadlines and their fee per article.

• Now for the rub: According to Helium, “The publisher will select the article they like best. Only the selected articles will earn revenue for the writer.” This means that if a writer spends 2 to 3 hours (or more) crafting a well researched and expertly written article, they have no guarantee of getting paid. In other words, all the work you have done has been wasted — many topics are too specific to sell elsewhere — and you are left uncompensated.

Out of Date Listings

On August 22, 2007, I took a look at the Helium Marketplace to see their list of publishers. According to TechCrunch, the initial 14 publishers will mushroom to over 1000 sometime in September. One would hope that Helium would do a better job with the 1000 publishers then what they are curently doing with those featured as many of the listed projects have long since expired (e.g., Geosign-Automotive with expiration dates of 06-29-2007 for some of their titles). I counted seven other publishers with expired dates which makes me wonder how they will handle the larger amount.

Bad Company and an Awful Users Agreement

Okay now to be blunt: if you consider yourself a serious writer, do you want to be associated with Helium? Critics have pointed out that Helium censors content and deletes accurate articles with one writer, Craig Kohler, claiming that he was stiffed some $300 from Helium and denied his contest earnings. Mark Hamilton, a journalism instructor from Vancouver, noted on his Notes from a Teacher blog that writers for Helium give them complete and perpetual rights for contributed content. In other words, if you submit your articles to Helium’s marketplace you don’t own them.

Whatever you decide to do, please read Helium’s user agreement first to familiarize yourself with their bad offer. If you don’t, then you have no one to blame but yourself if things do not go according to your expectations.