Pamela Beers writes:

I prefer articles only…except there are people with disabilities who may benefit from audio output. I am thinking about the current use of books on tape…maybe we could have articles on audio. Hm-m-m…interesting concept even for people without disabilities.

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Ed Howes writes:

Isn’t the solution obvious? mutantcontent.com with links and heavy promotion at EzineArticles. I’ll write an article about it and post it on a few dozen other directories and it will grow faster than EzineArticles has. :-)

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Ed,

You can have first dibs on that domain as I see its not registered yet.

-Rebecca Romijn is my favorite mutant from X-Men.

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Edward Weiss writes:

Yeah. Mystique is cool. But I wonder how good this new X-men will be without Bryan Singer’s direction.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Pamela,

Articles on Audio would be… PODCASTS.

:-)

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Steven Pam writes:

Hey Chris, good question.

What if you also offered writers the option to flag articles as *exclusive*, i.e. only *one publisher* will get the right to use them.

The listing on EzineArticles could consist of just the title, abstract, and maybe one or two paragraphs, plus the author’s bio.

Publishers could then *bid* (yes, money) on the articles and EzineArticles could take a commission on the end sale (licensing) price.

This would give you a ‘first class’ class of articles whose quality (or perception thereof) is not diluted by being published on free-for-all, garbage directory/adsense sites.

Radical!

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Pamela Beers writes:

I like Steven Pam’s idea.

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Steven Pam writes:

Pam, I think you only my idea because you like my surname!

:-)

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ellen mossman-glazer writes:

Keeping it simple and quality feels good and do-able to me. I like podcasting for Pam’s reason.
ellen mossman-glazer

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Lance Winslow writes:

Well I believe you could create sister sites.

For instance;

EzineTalk
EzineImages
EzineArt
EzineBooks

Separate sites but linked together and maybe not even linked from EzineArticle to them. But from them to EzineArticles Flagship website.

I have done a lot of this in our companies.

Carwashguys.com
Truckwashguy.com
BusWashGuys.com
DetailGuys.com
AircraftWashguys.com
Etc, etc.

We had to add niches to service our customer demands, without taking away from our hard fought brand name.

People who are creative and write articles are apt to be artists too, muscians, photographers, Consultants (audio). So you have 30,000 people and 10% of them each are also one of the others, thus you have built in content providers ready to rip. Making audio is a great idea, and yes you must be concerned not to dilute your brand, but also realize that synergy is free in that you have here already 3000 artists, 3000 photographers, 3000 Speakers-Consultants, 3000 muscians, 3000 eBook Authors and you could be inspiring boatloads more already here and gain quick synergy and become a fast mover in all the other niches due to your baseline content contributions. I have many thoughts on this and have actually written a few articles on this subject here on the Art Concept or photograph like Flickers.com and the Audio ideas are good, if you have the space and can impliment a “Sister Site”. Personally I could very easily put together 50-100 audio speeches within a month to add to a new site if you produced one. Also you might consider a link on a few categories here for links to audio site, starting with only a few categories; Self Help, Motivation, Health, Business, Arts and Music? The links could be at the bottom of the page; See Audio Directory on this subject. Not enough to canibalize traffic, just enough to get it going you see. The smaller starting sites would show big links to this site to show you are the “Real Deal” not a Johnny Come Lately.

Good thoughts really. Innovate or die as they say. And you are wise to be careful and think on it too, although once you decide don’t hesitate, GO FOR IT, if you decide to do it. Consider this in 2006. I wouldn’t mind someone commenting on my comments if they agree or disagree on this topic.

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Edward Weiss writes:

What about an editor’s pick from each of the aritcle categories?

This would benefit readers AND authors by showcasing what EzineArticles considers to be “good” article writing and give a key to other authors so they can start to include certain elements of these quality articles in their own. :)

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Lance Winslow writes:

I agree with Ed’s idea in that for instance the current most viewed is good but that does not give credit where credit is due to the Best Articles, which could have come in yesterday but only have 15-30 article views yet are the most outstanding of all? This gives something for authors as an incentive to write the best articles. Interesting and potentially a great addition to the site.

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Ed Howes writes:

I like the way Steven developed that exclusives idea as a revenue generator and I like Edward’s idea for the editor’s picks but I think such should be selected from articles nominated by authors, for the editor to choose from. The editor could set some criteria as well, such as the article has to have three nominations for consideration. This would make it a lot easier for the editor to make a choice and few would think the editor was playing personal favorites with the authors.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Steven Pam,

Yes, we’ve often contemplated that model and I believe we’ll even be testing it sometime in the next year.

Lance,

Every time we start to stretch into a different direction, we keep getting pulled back to focus on the core model that this site is run on. …only so many hours in a day, but I’m sure we’ll have our fingers into more mutant media areas soon enough. :-)

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