Cashing in with craigslist.com
In the interests of providing more quality articles to my readers (at last count, I had 1, quality post that is, I have no readers. Might be connected to the appalling grammar, I don’t know.), I posted this ad on craigslist.com:
Title: (writing gigs) Write for Nothing!
Write me an article and, if I like it, I will post on my interweb-i-blog. That’s right, you will be published, in a manner of speaking.
Spend as much time as you like to create your article, devote days, months, even years. Then, once your labor is complete, send it to me for no reward whatsoever. I’ll repeat this because its kind of hard to believe, but after much effort you will gain nothing for your time. Not even the possiblity of having your article read by someone, as this particular web site has no traffic. What’s more it has really bad search engine ranking so there isn’t even the possibility of it one day gaining an audience that might read your article. Let me put it this way, if you deleted your article right now, there is a small but statistically better chance that it will be read than if is published on our site.
The site is tententwo.com.
# Location: Anywhere you like
# Compensation: You will get nothing, absoluteley nothing.
It didn’t take long for the free content to start rolling in:
O.K. I will send you my article after I figure out how to pay my rent, pay my bills and purchase food, so that I can write my article to send to you. Then you can take my article, which I gave you for nothing, and make money from my article because you Web is a .com meaning commercial as in making money.
Geeez. This slave labor stuff is just Great!.
And then someone who fails the comedic comprehension test:
6/6/2007
Dear Hiring Manager:
I was interested to see your job posting on Craigslist for the position of freelance writer and would like to learn more about this opportunity.
I have been a journalist for about 7 years with extensive experience in writing and editing various trade and business publications.
As a journalist, I understand what kinds of stories work best with journalists and know the requirements of writing good press releases. I also have very good research and analytical writing skills, having worked for energy research companies like Energy Intelligence.
I feel that my journalistic writing and research skills would be an asset in various writing projects that you may have.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to have the opportunity to discuss the opening with you in person.
Sincerely
And an “A” for comedic comprehension:
There may no longer be any truth or justice in the American way, but there certainly is Truth in your posting.
Long live the word!
And, lastly, my favorite, the inevitable cryptic auto-message. Some dude has removed your post, but as this is the Internet, his identity and motivations must remain a state secret.
Your posting has been flagged for removal.
Approximately 98% of postings removed are in violation of craigslist posting guidelines.
Please make sure you are abiding by all posted site rules, including our terms of use:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use.html
If you need help figuring out why your posting was flagged, try asking in our flag help forum: http://forums.craigslist.org/?forumID=3. Include posting title, body, category, city, how often posted, any images, HTML markup, etc.
If your posting was wrongly flagged down (2% of flagged ads are) please accept our apologies and feel free to repost.
Sorry for the hassle, and thanks for your understanding.
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