YAHOO Contributor Network, the good, bad and ugly

Is the Yahoo contributor network a sound alternative to hubpages. The answer is yes, it absolutely is. I've been writing as a yahoo contributor for years. The Yahoo Contributor network has several advantages, and many disadvantages when compared to a service like hubpages. First of all, let me tell you about the advantages. I once received 40,000 page views overnight on the Yahoo Contributor network for my article about Tim Tebow throwing for 316 yards. It was featured on Yahoo, and I reaped the benefits. I think that I made $50 on that one night total alone. If you look at my hubpages profile you will see that I have not broken 100,000 views yet, and only recently have I made the $50 pay out. Does this mean that the Yahoo Contributor Network is better, NO!

When I first stated writing for the Yahoo Contributor Network, it was called Associated Content. The Associate Content website was much like Hubpages with a community and support system. They would offer assignments with upfront payments so that you could work on your writing skills, while making a few dollars. I took up some of these assignments and my work was even featured on the front pages of Associated Content. This gave me pride and confidence with regards to my writing. I am an engineer by trade, so I always felt kind of inferior when it came to my writing skills. It wasn't until Hubpages, and Associate Content recognized my writing through their award systems, that I actually felt worthy of blogging. Yes, I needed the pat on the back and the support systems of both of these communities helped me tremendously.

The problem with the Yahoo Contributor Network, is that they do not value their writers. Not just me, I couldn't care less, but they are a really crappy company. Like I said, I wrote an article for them that had 40,000 page views in 24 hours. Not many people can say that. Do you think that they recognize my contribution? No. I have applied several times to be a featured writer on their site, and they NEVER got back to me. Like I said before, I don't think that I am a particularly good writer. I am an engineer with an analytical mind. Creativity complete with lively sentence structure, lots of adjectives, and deep vocabulary is not my forte. I am a fact based writer. I took technical writing classes, and some minor composition classes in college. I am not someone that is trained to write. I didn't expect the Yahoo Contributor Network to bend over backwards to make me a featured writer, but I did expect them to get back to me. I've applied to them 2 or 3 times, and I've yet to hear back on anything, other than a refusal on the political front. That was expected, because Yahoo is known to lean to the left politically.

If you are a young writer the Yahoo Contributor Network will do you a few favors. Unlike hubpages the Yahoo Contributor Network has editors that will reject your work if it does not meet their standards. Actually, I have submitted work that is below my standards and they have accepted it, typos and all. But, they will force you to cite sources properly, or in some cases annoyingly improperly. They will work with you sentence structure to improve your writing. They will tell you what type of articles people are looking for at a particular time through their assignments. They will give you $2-$10 as an upfront bonus to your writing. There are a lot of good things about the Yahoo Contributor Network. I've used them to learn a lot of things about writing on the internet.

Like I said before, the Yahoo Contributor Network didn't get back to me on my featured writer application. So be it. They are a garbage company, I learned that while playing around with Yahoo answers when they threatened to close my account for being mean to people that disagreed with me. If calling an idiot an idiot is being mean, then I am guilty as charged. But, to close an account over some whiner is nonsense, and Yahoo has a history of allowing the whiners to bully them around. I wrote an article about Limbaugh after the Sandra Fluke (I so wanted to misspell her name) controversy and I was raked over the coals in my comments. Do you think that Yahoo deleted that vial puke? Hell no! It is fine for their contributors to be attacked and slandered in their uncontrolled comments. Yahoo is a sickening company when it comes to protecting its contributors.

In all honesty, I don't know if it gets much uglier than the comments that I received on my Limbaugh article. But, I just stopped reading comments and collected my money. I wrote under my pen name so no problem there. You have to be smart when you are writing. One of the ugliest things that the Yahoo Contributor Network would do is publish my work late. I got to the point where I stopped contributing news articles to them because they would wait 3 days to publish my news. I wrote news from a right leaning view so maybe that was their problem. But, in all honestly, I think that they are just a crappy company that screws over writers from every ideology.

Would I open a Yahoo Contributor Network account? Yes, I think that you can learn some useful tips there. Would I write there exclusively, hell no! They are a crappy (almost used a different word again) company that will treat you like trash. So open an account. See what their writing guidelines are, make a few bucks, then write for yourself, and you will be much better off.

You may have read in press reports that Yahoo! recently confirmed an older file containing approximately 450,000 email addresses and passwords—provided by writers who had joined Associated Content prior to May 2010—was publicly posted on the Internet. This file was a standalone file that was not used to grant access to Yahoo! systems and services. This message is being sent to you because your email address was in this compromised file. We are taking important steps to address this issue and have now fixed the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of the data, deployed additional security measures for affected Yahoo! users, and enhanced our underlying security controls. For example, before accessing this account, you were likely prompted to validate your identity and create a new password.Additionally, given the high frequency of consumers using the same login information on services across the Internet, we strongly advise users to: • Change their passwords for any account they hold every few months,• Use a different password for each service or website, and• Create passwords with a mixture of characters, symbols, and numbers. We also suggest that you proactively monitor the activity on your online accounts (Yahoo! or otherwise). Specifically, be on the lookout for spam that originates from your email, and check your sign-in activity from time to time. If you see anything suspicious—like your account was accessed in Romania when you were home in Chicago—you should change your password immediately.You can also take additional steps to safeguard your Yahoo! account by:• Adding a mobile phone number to your Yahoo! account,• Adding a non-Yahoo email address to your Yahoo! account, and• Keeping your Secret Question & Answer up-to-date.Updating this information is important, because we use will it to protect your account if we suspect malicious login activity or if you need to recover your password. Please also be suspicious of emails that prompt you with links and say you must update your Yahoo! account information. Yahoo! will never ask you to provide your password or security safeguards like your Secret Question & Answer via email. If you have additional questions, please visit Yahoo!'s Security Center. We take security very seriously at Yahoo! and invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data across all our products. In addition, we will continue to take significant measures to protect our users and their data. We sincerely apologize for this matter.Yahoo! Inc.