Associated Content Clout Finally Means Something…More Money

For the uninitiated, Associated Content (AC) has this thing called “Clout.” It’s a 1-to-10 scale based on a combination of page views and number of articles published. Until now, it was just a shiny bead that people got excited about when it increased. It really didn’t give you anything. But that was then and this is now.

AC announced today, starting with the next monthly bonus payout (scheduled for 9 July 2008), content producers with a clout of 7 and higher will receive an additional bonus. The actual message from AC was light on details. They didn’t say specifically how much more or if there would be different tiers of bonuses for each clout level 7 through 10 or if it would be the same for all 7+ producers. All it said was “you’ll see a boost in your next Performance Payment.”

EDIT: Well, someone finally spelled it out. This is how the PV bonus breaks down:

Clout 1-6	$1.50
Clout 7	$1.55
Clout 8	$1.60
Clout 9	$1.75
Clout 10	$2.00

Finally clout means something other than a shiny bead on the dashboard! Here’s the official AC page explaining this.

Also pinned to the announcement was some pending changes to the report AC provides for page views and payments. Which means I’ll have to change the old converter tool which lets you change the report text into a csv file for your spreadsheet.

edit/update 25 June 2008

Associated Content Begins Distribution Payments

With no announcement or warning, Associated Content started compensating their contributors for articles distributed via their web site partnership arrangements. We don’t have any official word so the following is early-observation conjecture.

Background
First, you have to know when submitting an article to AC, the author has several choices, one of which is “Distribution: Would you like to make this content eligible for distribution with approved AC partners?” This selection is only available under a couple of conditions:

1. The article must NOT be previously published.
2. If submitted as “Exclusive,” it is automatically eligible for Distribution consideration.
3. If submitted as “Non-Exclusive,” you have a choice in Distribution consideration.

Keep in mind, even non-exclusive submission are going to experience a publishing delay as a content manager must review them.

Distribution Payments
AC has been trying for a long time to figure out a decent way to compensate their contributors for articles sold to other sites. Since it is virtually impossible to track the amount of traffic these articles receive on the partner sites, it looks like AC has fallen back on a simple one-time payment for such articles. Reportedly, it is a $2.00 flat payment. At least, that is what the early returns are showing.

At this point, we don’t know if the payments may vary by partner or if AC is marching forward on some sort of traffic-based compensation from the partners. There has been no official announcement from AC about this new policy. Were all just guessing and hoping. The good news is, AC seems dedicated to finding new ways to fairly compensate their authors.