Big News from HubPages - Acquired by Maven
Because I too come from a finance background, I am being "very cautiously optimistic" about HubPages and Maven.
I had to think about this for a while.
QUOTE: Migration of the 27 premium channels to Maven’s platform will happen one at a time, over the next year, after testing and developing the migration plan. HubPages will remain an important “cultivating” network, at HubPages.com.
To me, the above statement means that vertical sites will not retain their own URL, and that hubpages will remain - a sort of second class site from which suitable content can be selected.
QUOTE: Maven Inc. (ticker symbol MVEN) agreed to acquire HubPages in a union that will bring together more than 40 million monthly unique users together in a single premium digital media network, the two companies announced after signing a letter of intent. The transaction is expected to close within 90 days.
Hubpages is not 'joining' Maven. Maven is making an outright purchase of HP. This means that Maven leadership will determine policy in the medium to long term.
QUOTE: HubPages’ network will be migrated to Maven’s publishing and community platform, relaunched as part of a single premium network, on one platform for advertisers.
Question. How does one retain one's URL wwhen one is moving to the Maven network. Do they mean that HP is moving the information on HP servers to servers in Seattle or do they mean that the articles are going to be hosted on different channels and the URL is, in fact, going to be changing.
QUOTE: Most recently, James Heckman (CEO Maven) led Scout, a publisher that filed for bankruptcy shortly after Heckman left under a cloud of accusations from investors. Heckman did not address the bankruptcy, but maintains those projects created lasting value. “Rivals and Scout both succeeded,” he said. Instead of going the VC-backed route to get Maven started, Heckman did a reverse recapitalization with a public shell company called Integrated Surgical Systems and renamed it Maven. The move allowed the startup to go public without working through the complex IPO process.
https://adexchanger.com/platforms/not-a … man-maven/
Reading between the line, I suspect that those who will be invited to join Maven will be specialists on particular topics, and they will be running almost a blog like site on Maven. I'm not sure what will happen to the rest of us who are generalists, but to be honest, I can't help not being too confident about that.
Also, I've noticed that nothing has been said about retaining our current reimbursement agreement. It is not unusual when one company acquires another for the purchaser to pay writers less in order to compensate for the recent monetary outlay in making the purchase.
So, for me, there's nothing to be done. There really is nowhere else to go. Blogs and my own website don't work for me because I'm not a specialist and building traffic is difficult.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.Two more quotes relevant to James Heckman - call it 'due diligence' by the punters.
"In a surprising display of grandad cool, MySpace was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, but the ownership turned out to be a chain around the platform’s neck. The site’s complexity overwhelmed its owners and MySpace – once the most visited website in the world – went into steep decline."
https://www.thememo.com/2017/04/19/fail … yo-vessel/
"Most notably, as Chief Strategy Officer of Fox Interactive Media, he was the architect and led negotiations for the pivotal $900 Million partnership between MySpace/Fox and Google, one of the largest strategic deals in the history of the Internet." https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jim-heckman
(PS NewsCorp became 21st Century Fox)That's interesting Tess; thanks for sharing that. I did not feel comfortable to start, when I heard they had only been around 6 months. That Bubblews bravado dread was all around me. This quote in particular disturbed me.
QUOTE: Most recently, James Heckman (CEO Maven) led Scout, a publisher that filed for bankruptcy shortly after Heckman left under a cloud of accusations from investors. Heckman did not address the bankruptcy, but maintains those projects created lasting value. “Rivals and Scout both succeeded,” he said. Instead of going the VC-backed route to get Maven started, Heckman did a reverse recapitalization with a public shell company called Integrated Surgical Systems and renamed it Maven. The move allowed the startup to go public without working through the complex IPO process.
Is Heckman another Arvind Dixit?Personally, the man does not inspire confidence in me at all. I see a big-talker who does not deliver. Hopefully, I'm wrong. Also, the paucity of information about Maven is scary. I don't like the way the site is set out either. Not something I would read. Not reader-friendly.
Is HubPages folding? Is everyone being moved there? I'm new. None of my content has even been approved yet. Will I be moved there?
JaniceMakingamark I agree, there should be a plain language FAQs. This is like the Telephone Game right now.
Looking at the one channel Marisa provided a link to, I was startled by the brevity of the articles. They are abstracts, not articles.
I also did not see how affiliate advertising fit into that model. It looked junky to me with large ads/links to other article and small content. I don't see how these two entities, HP and Maven "merge" without drastic philosophical changes in what constitutes content being applied to one or both sites. They do not seem to be a natural fit.
Then I snooped around and read this: https://www.themaven.net/bigblendedfami … 3iCh4bMcVQ Talk about your keyword cramming and just a weird how-to topic.
So I wondered is Maven acquiring HP for their editors? I see Paul is adding 8 more immediately.
I don't see how my articles could fit into a channel like these, but some like Dr. Mark, Alexadry and Agility Mach might receive invites from the Pethelpful realm.
Personally, I am concerned. I have been involved with many mergers, and usually there comes the come-to-Jesus meeting, the one where the new owners explain "we bought you = you are the losers in this equation." And then promises and what not go out the window in favor of the practicality of the new reality. "I know we agreed to...but the situation has changed, now this is how we must go forward."From what I could glean from the info given us, HP will be a subsidiary of Maven and will continue to function as before and our niche sites will remain "as is" with their own URLs. However, from the article you referred to, the platform for Maven sure looks different from what was explained to us. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. For most of us, if this goes sideways, it will be difficult to recover because creating your own blog and marketing it are things that take a tremendous amount of skill that most of us do not have...not to mention the immense amount of work that is involved. Having said this, all I can say is that Paul and Robin have always treated hubbers well, and I find it hard to believe that they would toss all of their years of work AND the people who supported them all this time under the bus.
The good news - you won't have to fit into any existing channel on Maven. The HubPages' niche sites will be separate channels, just as they are now, and you don't have to be "invited" to be part of them, you already are.
What Maven has done, so far, is approach small organisations and individuals, and persuade them to move their whole website on to their platform as a "channel". The attraction for the organisation/individual is that they can stop worrying about site maintenance and monetization, and the Maven platform has superior features to encourage reader interaction, plus they're promised extra visibility because of Maven's "brand".
Why anyone would surrender their own website to become a subfolder on a big site is beyond me, but clearly they've got some good salespeople.
So anyway, the HubPages niches become new channels, and we continue to write for them as normal, BUT Maven will be looking for the best HubPages writers and inviting them to create their own channel on their specialist subject. In other words, running your own blog but doing it on Maven.
There's some very confusing talk about what the structure will be. We've been told categorically that the niche sites will keep their existing URL's, but Maven's channels are clearly just sub-folders, so that's clearly impossible. The only conclusion is that Maven is going to adopt HubPages' structure, with a separate URL for each channel, which would be a very sensible idea.I hope you're right that Maven will adopt hubPages's structure. Right now they have all the channel URLs doing a 301 redirect to a subdirectory under themaven.net . That makes it a content farm!!!
Here's an example for those who don't understand this: Go to KidsActivities.com, which is one of their channels. You'll notice that you browser automatically is redirected to "themaven.net/kidsactivities"
If they start doing that with our vertical niche sites, we'll lose the advantage we had with those being separate domains.I sure hope that's not the plan. Christy says niche sites will keep their urls but what the point of that if it redirects to another site?
I can't see how else they would do it. Christy has said categorically that the URL's won't change on our sites, so (unless the HubPages network is going to operate as a totally separate entity), I can't see what else they could do.
The redirects from other domains to Maven channels has happened because every single channel was once a stand-alone website, run by an organisation or an individual. Maven has persuaded those individuals to transfer their website into the Maven network. I find it hard to believe why anyone would choose to do that.If HP is going to be a wholly owned subsidiary then it seems to me that it will become financially owned by the mother company but will keep it's brand name and operate as before, the only difference being that some niche sites would be invited to join Maven.
This way, no 301 redirects would be required unless a site moves to the Maven platform.
Maven would get the financial benefits (and the work load) of owning HP, writers would reap the benefits of Maven's tech and marketing expertise and Paul would no longer have the stress and headaches of trying to keep afloat by himself.
This is what makes sense to me based on what Kristy said about the URLs.Christy also clearly said the niche sites would become "channels on one premium network" - so no, HubPages is not going to remain as an independent network.
However as I understand it, each of the existing channels on the Maven network is independently run by a separate organisation. So it would be consistent for the HubPages team to continue managing the niche sites, and HubPages.com will remain as a feeder to the niche sites, even though they become channels on the existing Maven network.
My best guess right now is that Maven is going to change its structure so each of their channels has a separate URL, just like the niche sites. Paul dropped a hint about this when he said HubPages would be helping Maven improve their network structure. I'm guessing he can't actually say that change will happen, because it's not up to him to speak for Maven.
So what happens to the person who sets up his own channel on Maven when it comes to having the kind of support we have here with HP? People won't have the "hub tool", the comments section, the forum, etc...which I think are all things that make writers do well on HP.
Well it's not impossible to develop a support group. That's what all the Squidoo people did who touched base with HubPages so they got to collect their cheque from Squidoo and then moved on out to develop their own sites.
Facebook was humming with support groups (often Private) for those wanting to look at new options - and some of them are still going.By support I mean the type of technical setup we have here as well as the forums, etc. Those of us who are not tech savvy could have a real problem if Maven drops that type of platform.
I think you'd be very surprised if you took a look at the options out there which provide a very big helping hand for those wanting to build their own sites. You're not stuck for people who want to give you technical help.
If you are not techie look at Weebly, Wix and Squarespace if you want a proper website. Very easy to use - and they look after all the techie stuff so you just have to build the content.
The main difference is that it can cost you to host a site elsewhere - but then you don't share your income with anybody - so quid pro quo.They're not suggesting dropping that kind of platform. If you are invited to start your own channel, it doesn't mean you have to abandon writing for the niche sites. It will be a separate thing.
Each of the existing channels is just a blog or a website. So if you're asked to start your own channel, you'll basically be creating a blog, just like you would on Blogger, except that Maven will look after the monetizing (which as we know, can be one of the hardest parts).Why would I want to start a blog? Especially if Maven would own the content, and especially if I am happy writing for HP? Makes no sense to me because either way, I'd have to split my income with the site owners.
I agree. If I am going to start my own blog or site, I want full control over content and the benefits from advertising.
That works well, but only if you understand the tech and marketing aspects of blogging, which I do not.
Yes, that's the whole point, TT2. That's why Maven has been able to persuade people to transfer their blog or website to a Maven channel, instead of staying as an independent website. It's enables them to run their own site without having to worry about the tech stuff or the advertising, because Maven does all that.
Whether that's a fair bargain, I'm not sure. If they had separate URL's I'd say it was - the way it is now, not convinced.
The problem with starting one's own blog is that it is incredibly difficult to get traffic, and it is really, really difficult to make a blog pay - regardless of all the gurus out there who tell you otherwis.e
The existing niche sites will continue, just under the Maven umbrella.
What I expect to see happen is that authors will be invited to have their own channel on Maven. If they accept, their articles on the niche site will go with them to their new channel, so that it has some content from the beginning. That would thin the content on the niche sites. Especially if 20% of the most popular hubs go over to maven in new author channels.
Google would view those articles leaving grimmly, which would be bad for those of us staying on the niche sites. I understand that they intend to market these sites without Google and Facebook's help, so if they are successful in that endeavor, it might not matter to any of us what Google thinks.
This explains a lot about the business model that James Heckman runs re. the Maven
https://adexchanger.com/platforms/not-a … man-maven/I don't get it. If no advertising appears on any of Maven's articles, how do they get income other than from subscriptions?
I read that too, but the maven site is full of advertising now, and that expertise is what they are bringing to the table. I think the point was that they are paying themselves huge salaries, with no revenue coming in whatsoever (at the time the article was written in June). Very dot.comesque. I remember back in the day saying, "how can these stocks keep going up, they don't even have a revenue stream..." then most went down to oblivion.
The pink sheets are rife with companies and penny stock brokers conning investors with the next Microsoft ground floor opportunity. Afterall, you only have to risk a few hundred dollars to become the next Bill Gates, why not.
I don't think the Paul's would knowingly throw it all away. Maven staff have given us a good return on their advice these last few months, but perhaps they have already given all they have to give of value, and HP is the coup for them. They need good content more than we need their future efforts.
Heckman has jumped around a lot in his career, and wants to make a lot of money on his stock. Hence the rush to buy out an existing company and just change its name to get a listing on the pink sheets. You make money by then selling that stock once it goes up enough to suit your taste or sense that things are going off the rails in the near future. I wonder how long he intends to be in this business. Will he just "provide value" and bailout as he did with Scout.Does anybody "knowingly" throw it all away?
You make a lot of good points though!
I'm always very suspicious of serial entrepreneurs who are forever moving on. In the commercial world they're known as "asset strippers".That is exactly what worries me. He doesn't have a good rap sheet.
What if Maven bought HP in order to begin using HP's website network methodology/technology in place of their own, realizing that HP's methodology is better?
For those who see this acquisition as nothing but trouble and who do have a solid background in business and finance - what would you suggest to the rest of us other than backing up our content? What could we do to safeguard ourselves and be proactive rather than panicked?
I don't have a better answer than wait and see what direction things head in. I am not jumping ship, but I will be paying close attention to the changes going forward. Some of their ideas have obviously produced results, others were questionable. I am still uncomfortable with the idea of paying for backlinks as part of a marketing strategy.
The best advice is always spread your risk and don't put all your eggs in one basket. That's a classic finance portfolio management strategy - spread the risk.
Those that go under have usually "bet the house".
Then go back to basics with Google
1) review their recently REVISED Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide. (first MAJOR update since 2010!) https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184
The new guide MERGES the Webmaster Academy and the old SEO Starter Guide PDF (2010) into one resource section online. It has brand new sections relating to new sections for:
* the need for search engine optimisation
* how to add structured data mark-up
* building mobile-friendly websites
2) make sure you know what you need to do if you do decide to move (let's say) some of your content elsewhereSince you own your content, what is the problem of waiting to see how things go and then if you aren't happy, removing it from Maven and using it to create your own website, ebook or blog?
I agree. I think it's a wait-and-see situation. It could turn out very good.
It definitely can turn out to be good, you wouldn't think so given the doom and gloom on these threads. It can be particularly good for relatively successful writers on Hubpages as their articles could see more visibility, have more professional oversight, and they'd be able to take advantage of advanced technology features like the AMP pages.
They may also be invited to create new channels for Maven, which could benefit them further. We'll have more editors to work with, more features and tools, and stronger brand recognition.
For those who say it's over, what exactly do you want us to do besides back up and save all of our content. How easy do you think it is to generate our own blogs and sites that actually make money if the Hubpages network has struggled against bigger corporations.
This isn't 2005-2008, individuals who go on their own will fail 99% of the time because is impossible to compete with billions of other articles without any sort of brand recognition.
So those who say we should just take our stuff and create our own sites are being extremely optimistic because unless you have years of experience on your own, then you'll fail.I don't see anyone saying it's over. I see people being concerned that it COULD all go badly wrong, and considering how to mitigate the risk.
It is very easy to generate your own blog or website. HubPages (and other writing sites) have struggled because they've persisted with a generalist model, when Google has been telling us for years that they want specialist websites.
If you are able to create a website or blog that specialises in one broad area of expertise, you will get traffic. Not as much traffic as HubPages, probably, but your conversion rate (the number of sales you make per visitor) can be much, much higher (although some writers do struggle with how to monetize effectively).
Where most Hubbers go wrong when they create a blog, is that they imagine people will follow them just because they're a good writer. That ain't gonna happen, unless you're a fiction or comedy writer. You must stick to one subject, do it well, and produce a LOT of content about that subject.
Of course that means you can't transfer all your content to a blog, because chances are your Hubs aren't all on the same topic. And it really doesn't work to start a whole heap of different blogs for all your different subjects, because you need to write a lot of material for each blog before it will get taken seriously. Therefore if you're not a niche writer, you've got a problem.Marisa, I still don't think this is feasible for most people. The bottom line be is that people who got in early got the traffic. At this point, it is extremely difficult to find a topic that hasn't already been written about, and one of Google search criteria is how long the blog or site has been on the web.
It simply isn't that easy anymore. It used to be, but not anymore.
Nobody is saying it is over, but people saying that hubbers must back up their work is implying two things.
1. That hubpages is suddenly going to vanish.
2. That hubbers have somewhere else to take their work.
I maintain that HP is actually the only viable content site that pays on the web. There is nowhere else to go unless you are a brilliant programmer and SEO guru.
One thing that concerns me is that since the announcement was made, my income has dropped quite a bit. I'm wondering if advertisers are backing away right now because they think there might be some problems.
I wondered the same, TT. We write in similar niches so it may just be the season. Hopefully...
You're using adsense, right? The way that advertising works, it could not possibly have any effect
Oh boy, here we go again.
I am hoping for the best, but dreading this while I wait.
So, I will lose all of my long-term following from links that are through H.P. now too as I did when Squidoo went away and we forced to move here ??? I like it okay here, but now all of my time to get these links out there was once again wasted I guess.
We'll see.You don't need to worry about your links if the niche sites remain on their own domains.
After reading it I can see now why Paul did this. I don't think he had much of a choice because the way things are going, he likely could have eventually lost HP. This may or may not save it, but I think it's the best he felt he could do. My question is how can any site survive without depending on Google and Facebook?
Don't want to rub them up the wrong way, but they must be kicking themselves that they didn't exit circa-2010 around the time that Yahoo acquired Associated Content for $100m.
It wasn't too much larger than Hubpages at the time. Although of course the same applies to Seth Godin and every other owner of any large site which suffered through Panda and Penguin, and the multitude of other things like the rise of Ad Blockers.
And life is full of 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' things.... I wish I hadn't sold my Bitcoin at $300... I'd be financially secure at 32, but life goes on.
and another interesting article about Heckman and Maven
https://nypost.com/2017/10/24/james-hec … d-running/
- again alleging that there's a certain financial precariousness in his recent past
Plus apparently "he hopes to have 1,000 channels in more than 20 content verticals."
Sounds like corporate farming to me.Hmmm.... I don't have a horse in this race, but when looking at www,themaven.net I don't feel too confident that this is going to end well.
Aren't they following a failed model, the one which hubpages spent several years finding a fix to? And niche sites on their own domains was the fix?
Also, I know that its a clever play on network (https://www.themavern.net) but I feel they'd site would look a lot more professional if they just went for https://themavern.com, which is also a domain they own.
It sort of looks and feels like Examiner.com which did very well for a long time but was ultimately the victim of an algorithm update. In fact both Examiner and themavern are/were built on drupal, the same CMS.
Although another scenario that people aren't considering perhaps is that themavern have actually acquired hubpages for their expertise, and that rather than hubpages being absorbed into themavern.... what they actually want is for their newly acquired talent to split themavern up into niche sites... where /whatever gets stuck on its own domain, but all content can be viewed via themavern.
I think I may have hit the nail on the head here, that themavern.net will look a lot more like hubpages prior to the niche sites becoming part of that same network??
Firms often do acquire other firms because of the talent they would inherit, because they need people who can do a certain thing.I wondered about the .net thing given that the .com redirects. Maybe the .com was compromised by previous bad owners.
Also maven.com is a ride sharing company, so room for confusion. But there you are...
Anyway, HP are keeping there own URL's, so it should not affect us.
(ps you said 'mavern' by mistake)I suppose its trying to be the 'reddit of content' or something, which each channel becoming a little bit like a subreddit.
Doesn't feel particularly innovative though, actually feels a bit 2008.
ps. they should probably think about registering themavern.net, tempted to do it myself for typo traffic.... its available to register.
I hope the two Paul's and the third bloke get enough money out of this to pay off their mortgages, because feels a bit high risk to me...
... although if hubpages inc remains as a standalone subsidiary then they could buy back the asset in the event of themaven failing.
I reckon people should check out the pedigree of the team at maven. I don't think the risk is incompetence. The risk is that HP is moving from being a sort of family firm to a commodity to be traded, sold, revamped etc etc.
The new crew will not be much invested emotionally, only financially.
The fact that HP management are moving with us and have at least three years built in, is reassuring (to me at least), but after that, who knows.I agree. However, I do feel that Paul will have to provide all the help he can because his own payout won't come to fruition completely until the end of year 3.
So we all invest for three years and then are sold out? Huffington Post, etc. where the writers never got compensated?
Interesting topic for a broader discussion on business ethics.
Who do the Paul's "owe" the most? The investors that they asked for $8m from, or the writers who they invited to use their platform.
I'd argue the investors, who get $5m back from this deal. We don't know whether they've received any other payments from profits, but we do know that a lot of years have not been profitable (the first 4 included I believe).
And in 2011 when this site was given a huge smack on the head by Google... this site undoubtedly would have fallen back on capital reserves, so would have been burning through investor cash which the investors did not pull, so those investors put a lot of faith in the founders.
So you could argue that all writers on this site "owe" the investors their gratitude to a degree.
If Paul thought that this was the only way he could realistically return his investors money, or most of it, and preserve his reputation in the process... then that would have been a big factor.
After all.... in 3 years if he decides to start something else, if he has the energy left to start all over again, he's going to be knocking on the doors of VC's again... and that's going to be much easier if he can say something like "investors in hubpages broke even on their investments".
Bare in mind also that $8m in 2005 is more than it is in 2018 due to inflation too. And that writers can take back their intellectual property whenever they please, but investors haven't had that same luxury with their cash.I guess one's view depends on whether one sees investors as more important than workers. Workers are investing as well.
The thing is though, you don't "work" for hubpages, you have chosen to use their platform. They have 36 employees and you aren't one of them, but those 36 now have stock that they can actually liquidate whenever they please.
But they wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for the investors, and if they didn't have a job then you wouldn't have this platform to write on.
Perhaps most importantly to the founders... if their investors get burnt, they may not get investment again. They aren't getting any younger and there have been 13 more years of Stanford alumni to flood into Silicon Valley since they started who are all fighting for the same pot of money (if they decide on another startup, rather than a stable jobs.
Suffice to say I think that they all care more about the financial security of their own families over anything else, and so they should.Yes, I chose to use hubpages. That is because, as writers, we have very few options. However without writers, the Internet would not exist. And if all writers pulled out of hubpages right now, hubpages wouldn't have anything to sell. And without writers, Maven wouldn't be able to get the advertising.
Investors only have something to invest in because of writers.
Saying that 'writers' have a choice is true. They can chose to crash the entire internet and every other platform if they band together.
Where are your 'investors' then?
My point is simply that workers/writers are the ones that are doing the actual work, and that investors have been inflated for far too long.
This is not a pointed argument at hubpages, but simply taking you at your word as a general argument about investors vs workers.
The power of workers, however, is about to fade as AI takes over. As far as I can see AI is perfectly capable of writing articles, and we-the-people are about too fade into a Dystopian nightmare.I was about to write that actually (last few lines), many of the sites in the top 10,000 most visited are completely computer generated / automated and have very little human input.
Example would be worthofweb.com.... you copy your URL, an algorithm decides on the value of your site, and then it generates a page for the search engines "hubpages is worth $xxxxxxxx". Alexa 39,195 with 19600 indexed pages... none of which were created by humans.
Also peoples attention spans are decreasing, fewer people now have the patience to read an article... we're becoming more like goldfish (2 second memories).
It does feel though that you have already decided that this merger is going to be bad for you. It may not be, and I suspect the Paul's think this is a good deal all round... for investors, employees, and the writers on hubpages. Only time will tell if it is or not for the latter two.The reason Unions used to be so powerful is because they banded the power of the workers together against the investors. That power falls away with the advent of robots in which case writers and everybody else out there is screwed.
That said, please provide me a site where the writing is computer generated.
At this point, after 24 years on the web on three continents, I have yet to see the purchase of a content site of any sort result in anything good for writers.
Certainly some of us may benefit from this, but I suspect generalist writers like myself may well lose out. By that I mean we won't be invited to have a particular 'channel.' Of course, Paul may well turn out to have made an amazing deal for the complete stable of writers. However, reading between the lines, niche writers will benefit but generalist writers won't.
We will have to wait and see how this turns out.Too boring. I just don't have it in me to become a niche writer. My attention span would disappear shortly after attempting it.
However, even generalist writers get some of their articles moved to niche sites, which means in those instances, they no longer are generalists but rather part of a group writing on a particular topic. So, if that niche site gets moved, the articles of generalists get moved also.
If people's attention spans are shortening, why have we been encouraged to write increasingly lengthy hubs?
You should know that. Because longer hubs rank better on Google.
What good does it do if they rank better but people don't read them all the way through?
What irritates me is when I am searching for a real answer, and the intro goes on and on with homey funny lead in, just to make it longer. I will click away from that, but if the length is explaining to me what I need to know in detail, then I will read it all the way through, to make sure I have not missed an important warning or detail.
Surely that's obvious. The reader has visited your page, so you get credit for that view. If they read part of the way through and click on your Amazon ad, you've made a sale. If they read part of the way through and click on an Adsense ad, you've earned a click.
Haven't you ever wondered why I say, don't put your Amazon ads at the end of a Hub because most readers don't read that far?If the topic is interesting and the reader wants to learn, they do read it through. I always wrote long hubs, I was advised against it when I began here 7 years ago. I continued to do so, because I was teaching in my hubs, and google loves me.
Pitchforks. That's a business to get into, going forward, lol.
Well, Nick Hanauer certainly thinks so...
Years ago I got squeamish when a friend suggested I start a worm farm. She advised me to just look at each worm as a dollar, and that would solve the problem! For me, it didn't, but it was good advice. Pitchforks, worms...whatever!
Apparently, we are subject to censorship of blog comments.
I left a comment on the blog post announcing this to the effect that "takeovers" (buy outs; whatever pretty language you care to use) are rarely 'friendly,' more often hostile, and precursors to downsizing, and major changes in structure.
I stated that I wasn't thrilled, but was willing to reserve judgement "for now." Gee--other comments, in favor of the merger, are posted; mine is not. What a frigging surprise. That in and of itself gives me pause.
And BTW--we now have a technical glitch in the forums: the "reply" button under each post is not working. The only one working is the 'post reply' button all the way at the bottom of the page, where it will not be in context to the post to which we are intending to reply!
Does not bode well...Oh, I just checked out their site, and right on the front page, this article:
https://www.themaven.net/globallead/ear … axhq--Mddw
Well, that's all well and good, until you're in a drought!!!! We Californians are all too aware of that possibility!Surprised you didn't notice the 150,119 views that this post has in 1 day though, multiply 150 x typical CPM, take off 40% = Good money.
Plus most of the world doesn't live in California, the device was made in India where they have a Monsoon season.
I've just read through this thread and lots of questions have been answered and more are forming as I type. As someone who came over from Squidoo, you have to understand my skepticism. Moving to Hubpages meant a lot of work for all the Squidoo writers whether it was rewrites or tweaks to fit HPs format.
I've taken a look at Maven. What I see is that Maven will be great for the niche sites and those who write on a single topic.
My main question is about the content not moved to niche sites on HP. I understand that the niche sites will become a part of Maven and retain their URLs. But, what about all the loose hubs hanging around that haven't been added to a niche site yet or will never fit a niche? Will there be a place for those?Right now many articles are doing well on HP, especially after their competition was removed to a niche site. I can't imagine them hurting traffic to the HP site when they can have 2 birds in the hand and another in the bush, so to speak.
According to what I read on the Maven press release, Hubpages itself will remain as a sort of second rate pool from which promising articles and writers will be scouted for...
Yes, Tess,that's what it is already, hadn't you noticed? Once the niche sites were launched, the main site became nothing more than a clearing house for us to submit our Hubs to the niche sites.
HubPages cherry-picked all the high-earning Hubs to move to the niche sites. Every new Hub that's published gets moved to a niche site, if it's good enough.
The vast pool of Hubs left on the main site earns only around 20% of HubPages' income. Some of them may be well written, but if they don't make money for HubPages, they are "a second rate pool" as far as HubPages is concerned. That won't change with the move to Maven.
And by the way, around half my Hubs are still on HubPages.com too.I guess it was just nice to have it confirmed...
Marisa,
When I move hubs that I work on to move to niches, they often pay off a lot more. Does it still matter to keep moving them? I did write about more than Astrology, I wrote about many metaphysical topics. I also did a lot of book reviews, some I am adding sources to, which are very well written and researched, and stuck on a Miscellaneous part of Exemplore. The administration has offered to move them to the correct niche, but I haven't had time to add the sources yet. Much of my work was put in wrong niches after people began to associate me with Astrology.
I've had to fight to keep a lot of what I wrote off Exemplore, they just began to use it as a catch all for subjects that weren't metaphysical at all.Yes, I think it matters even more to get them moved now.
HubPages.com will continue to exist, so those "loose Hubs" will remain on HubPages.com, just like they do now. However I'll be interested to see if it continues in exactly the same way, considering that:
(a) All the best-performing Hubs, accounting for over 80% of HubPages' income, have already been moved to the niche sites.
(b) Every single new Hub that's published is automatically considered for the niche sites, and moved if it's considered good enough.
What does that tell you? The main site now consists of only the worst-performing Hubs, contributing less than 20% of the company's income. And that's never going to improve, because the best Hubs are all being moved straight to the niche sites. That means it's not a site that can ever have a real future, and that was the case even before the Maven takeover.
The niche sites are the future. If the main site still worked as a profitable business, HubPages wouldn't have gone to the huge expense of creating the niche sites. Your only option, really, is to work on getting those "loose Hubs" moved to the niche sites by updating them and submitting them to the niche sites once a fortnight, as we're allowed to do.I wonder whether this forum will continue to exist though?
You know how people come on here to have a moan about hubpages? Well when people come on here to have a moan about TheMaven... I wonder how quickly they will delete the forum, or at very least make it noindex so search results aren't in Google.
I'd personally be delighted if this forum was made noindex, but hope for all your sakes it isn't deleted.Yup, I've been on sites where the forum has mysteriously disappeared when the going got tough...
Marisa,
I appreciate how you are always able to get to the heart of things. The only positive I see is that they've hired new editors who are also supposed to work on the backlog of older hubs. What does that mean though? As you said, it behooves them to move the best performers.
I guess it's a good time to decide if my loose hubs are really fit for HP/Maven or better served on my own websites/blogs.
Nothing will happen to them. They'll remain on the HP site and some will move up to the niches. If they're featured, they'll earn...same as before.
Am quoting this verbatim from a CNBC report. I keep forgetting we're not allowed to post links here.
After 12 years and endless fights with Google, start-up HubPages finds a buyer
HubPages struggled for over a decade as an independent publisher.
The company raised $8 million between 2007 and 2008 but that was it.
Selling to Maven gives HubPages' investors a mild payout and allows employees to get stock in a publicly traded company.
Silicon Valley celebrates the massive exits and the brilliant entrepreneurs behind them. There's Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Snap's Evan Spiegel, Salesforce's Marc Benioff and Twitter's Evan Williams, just to name a few.
But the overwhelming majority of start-up founders are a lot more like Paul Edmondson than any of the aforementioned celebrities.
Edmondson poured 12 years of money, sweat and tears into HubPages. He raised $8 million from venture capitalists in the early days before hitting a wall — and then another wall — and then falling out of favor with tech's financiers.
On Friday morning, Edmondson finally got his exit. HubPages, a collection of websites that cover topics ranging from pets and cars to healthy living, was acquired by a Seattle-based content company named Maven, which has a market value below $70 million and a stock that trades over-the-counter (OTC).
Terms of the deal weren't fully disclosed, but the general structure calls for HubPages' investors to get $5 million and for company founders and employees to receive a combination of cash and shares that could be worth another $10 million to $15 million, based on performance metrics and stock appreciation over the next three years.
Existential threats
The story didn't get any pickup, not even from the reliable tech blogs. Edmondson called to tell me about the deal, not so much because he wanted a story, but because we've spoken many times in recent years about the deep existential challenges that companies like his face in a world where so much traffic comes from Google search.
Edmondson was excited because he'd found a home for himself and his 32 employees (including eight that start on Monday) and he's giving them a chance to own stock with potential upside.
"When you're trapped inside small private companies, you don't have a way for you or your employees to get liquid," Edmondson said. He added that he's been paying himself a "below-market salary."
Edmondson's team will double the size of Maven, which similarly operates a network of websites on topics from chocolate to economics. Both companies have been trying to build a business that can survive without reliance on Google and Facebook, which control about two-thirds of the U.S. digital ad market, according to eMarketer.
HubPages attracts more than 35 million visitors a month through its 27 domains. Close to 70 percent of that traffic is now on mobile, Edmondson said.
The business has stabilized since 2016, when HubPages narrowed its focus to those 27 particular subjects and committed to obtaining premium content that could be edited by in-house professionals.
In previous years, HubPages' success was tied to Google and fluctuated based on whatever the web giant did with its search engine. For example, in May 2015, HubPages saw its traffic plunge 22 percent in one week after Google suddenly lowered the visibility of how-to sites. Like with most of Google's algorithm changes, there was no warning and no explanation.
"Imagine how hard it is to run a business when you see 22 percent of your traffic evaporate overnight," Edmondson told CNBC for a story about that change, which was dubbed "Phantom 2" by one analyst.
It was just the latest in a series of hits that HubPages had faced over the years. Building an independent online media company has mostly been a losing model, as ad dollars have concentrated in the hands of the giant internet and entertainment businesses.
HubPages was able to raise venture money in 2007 and 2008, and then never again.
Far from taking a breather, Edmondson is now likely to be working even harder. The company has performance targets it has to meet for him to maximize his pay, and he also wants to do what he can to help Maven's stock.Too many red flags: Maybe Paul or someone can elaborate. It would be eve nicer if someone from The Mavin would come on and join in the discussion.
I've been on HubPages for years and have followed the ups and downs, but rarely post. Mainly, because I believe in the vision of HubPages and have always gotten frequent payouts, baring certain Google updates.
I started looking into The Mavin's background and wasn't impressed. A few of the things that I saw:
1. ) P/E Ratio was not listed. That was a huge red flag that prompted me to look deeper. In the stock world, an n/a for P/E Ratios usually indicate a net loss. Next..
2.) EBITDA shows a negative -5.24M. Explains why the P/E Ratio wasn't reported.
3.) Operating Cash Flow is reported at a negative -2.73M.
On Yahoo Finance, the historical data shows this as a continuing trend. In 2014, it shows -235k; 2015, -197k, then 2016 -2.19M.
For the fiscal year, there's no profit margin reported, no P/E/ Ratios, no growth profit, and no quarterly earnings growth.
-- Next, I found this: "Currently, TheMaven includes a few dozen publications such as Chess Daily News, Marijuana Maven, Blue Lives Matter and Transgender Universe."
I don't see any of those "publications" gaining a large following such as HugPages has right now. Additionally, I have issues with the publications that were acquired. I don't care if people use marijuana or are transgender or not, but I would think that a company going after a large market share and trying to compete with Google and Facebook would pick organizations that offer a broader appeal. Personally, I would love to see what all they have acquired.
-- Then, this really concerned me: "When you're trapped inside small private companies, you don't have a way for you or your employees to get liquid," Edmondson said. (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/06/hubpage … years.html)
Are Paul and the other company owners "trapped" and looking for a way to "get liquid"? I was always under the impression that Paul had a passion for HubPages and never thought he felt trapped by it. This quote pretty much eliminated that belief for me.
It really doesn't matter as long as they still fully own HubPages; I'll know that they are still focused on earnings and since earnings are based on how well contributors do, that means they will still be focused on improving the way author "contributions" are processed. But, once the company goes into different hands, that may be a different story.
-- So my final thoughts.. and hopefully someone can weigh in on this.
The buyout is going to happen. It looks like HubPages will become a subsidiary of The Maven no matter what concerns we have.
I'm of two minds.
The negative numbers concern me. Are they because the business is doing poorly or is it because of the acquisitions? Are the acquisitions going to overextend the business to a point where it no longer is viable? With author earnings, because of the negative numbers, will the earnings drop to make up the business losses?
The acquisitions could be a good thing though. It all depends on what acquisitions are made. Sites that revolve around Chess won't do anyone much good, but if several multi-platform sites such as HubPages are merged, then that could potentially boost earnings.
Two things that I would like to see BEFORE the acquisition is first, for Paul and his team to provide an easy way for us to backup our articles, and second, to have a legal agreement showing where the authors content is guaranteed to remain sole property of the authors in perpetuity and agreed to by both HubPages (which is already there) and by The Maven.
For now, I'll trust Paul and the team with what they say, but I also want to make sure that the authors (primarily me!) are still covered as well in case if something does happen.The company only launched in 2017 according to this article:
https://www.geekwire.com/2016/rivals-co … go-public/
So its odd that Yahoo would show data for 2014, are you sure this isn't a different business?
Besides... hubpages took about 3 years to reach break even point, so this is normal for a startup to burn money for a while. The problem arises if you don't reach break even before the money runs out, you then have to find more investment or fold (but Tess doesn't like investors, so you'd have to fold).This makes me feel a little bit better. Not much, but a little bit.
It looks like The Maven was a pre-existing business that was bought out in October 2016: "On October 14, 2016, Integrated Surgical Systems, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Integrated”), entered into a Share Exchange Agreement (the “Share Exchange Agreement”) with theMaven Network, Inc., a Nevada corporation..."
The stock ticker is the same and I used that to pull the numbers. If it was owned by someone else then that makes more sense.
It takes time for anything to show a profit. Typical brick and mortar stores now look at an average of 13 months - I don't know what online places take, but I figure it would be longer.
It will be an interesting time, that's for sure. I'm not sold on the idea but it's not up to me anyway. HubPages has been great and I can't be more thankful, but I also want to make sure that we're covered at the same time. There's a lot that I'm still not clear on. But, I see a lot of potential here though. I hope it goes as everyone expects it will!
Start up companies often lose money for several years before their investment in their business and demand for their products reaches a point where the business becomes profitable. I am not too concerned about recent or current losses. What's important is their vision, execution of that vision and ultimately where they are heading. If HubPages is already profitable, that should help theMaven's future financial reports.
All of us hold copyright on our articles. Nobody can change that. We can sell them to Maven if they offer to buy, but regardless of the site, we individually own our hubs.
I'm glad I stayed out of this discussion. I do not crave another ban.
I've started a new thread, as much to clear my own head as anything, to document exactly what we know about the merger. I'm going to update it as and when we get more info.
https://hubpages.com/community/forum/14 … -the-factsHey Timetraveler, mine has also dropped - by over half what it was just a couple of weeks ago. But if I recall, this is a normal drop for this time of year (and still more than I was making a year ago). I'd say it's probably just coincidence right now.
Not quite. I have a well-written, beautifully laid-out, grammatically perfect hub which gets worthwhile traffic, mostly via social shares, but doesn't have a home on any of the current niche sites simply because its content isn’t a good fit.
I don't dispute that the “old” HubPages domain remains a dumping ground for all the dross. But there may also be many hubs like mine doing well despite the now poor quality of the domain, and which don't get much from Google because of that, but are still good and draw traffic from other sources.
Perhaps these good quality “ghost hubs” might find a home and a new “lease of life” on one of the Maven channels?
Just a thought.I think Paul said they would be launching some new Niche sites. Your hub may find a home there too.
I'm curious, has HubPages told you it was rejected because it's a poor fit? Or are you surmising that?
Remember social traffic doesn't count.
No, having carefully examined all the available niche sites I didn't find one it would have made sense to submit it to.
Social traffic may not "count" (not sure what you mean by that) but it still leads to clicks on ads, I assure you.The niche sites were created based on HubPages' existing categories. There isn't a single category that wasn't mapped to a niche site. Sometimes, I think they've mapped those categories in weird ways (I still can't understand why dance is lumped in with board games, for instance), but they have allocated a home for everything.
Just submit it using the Submit button and pick a niche site at random. The editors don't pay any attention to your choice of site, anyway, they decide which site they think it is best for. Several times, I've submitted a Hub nominating it for one site, only to find it moved to another one.
When I said "social traffic doesn't count", I meant that they didn't count it when choosing the "best-performing Hubs" to be moved to the niche sites. So that's why your Hub didn't get moved, in spite of its high quality.
So lets talk about our options.
1. We shrug our shoulders. What will be will be. We'll take our chances and see how it goes.
2. Well, not so fast. Analyze the situation. It can go either way. Paul has three years to make it work well. We can make hay while the sun shines. Maybe a door opens for us, and we earn a good bit more than we have so far. But let's be prepared in case it doesn't work out. Or maybe at the end of three years we are sold down the river. So we carry on working for hp, but we also look for other opportunities on the web.
3. James Heckman sounds like a bit of a con. Let's move our stuff immediately to our own blog where we suddenly realize that we have no traffic and staying on hp was probably a better idea.
4. Well who needs hp anyway? Have some other sites and doing okay there. Will move some of my stuff there and let it grow. Been this route before. Never ends well for the writers...
5 ???
I opt for 2. And you?I'm shrugging my shoulders, thinking what will be will be, but meanwhile writing like a crazy writing thing. If the worst comes to the worst I'll have a decent bunch of articles to republish. I'd rather they stayed here though.
I see no point in speculating, surmising, second guessing, reading between the lines, or panicking.I like option 2, Tess. However, in this moment, I am option 1.
As one of the people who came from Squidoo and who has watched friends who write for other sites suddenly see those situations disappear, I go with option 1...shrug my shoulders.
With Squidoo, we were given a couple of weeks to make up our minds, back up our work, and then cross our fingers and hope for the best. That was the easy part. What happened after was weeks of uncertainty, tons of work modifying hubs to meet the new standards, dealing with glitches (none of my photo attributions came over with my lenses for instance), changing guidelines, more dates for meeting standards, and so forth.
It was a very stressful period and I know I wasn't the only one who had to put everything else on hold. Having been through that, it seems best to take it in stride with a wait and see approach.
If it doesn't look like a good thing, I can always move the hubs that fit to my website/blogs.
It's just all so unsettling and uncertain, but I guess that is the state of writing online.Well, I hope you mean you'll be shrugging your shoulders over Maven, and not shrugging your shoulders and letting your Hubs languish on the main site, where they'll have little or no future (because the only way for the main site is downhill, because quality content is no longer being added to it).
In the end.. not really.
I figure I'll run with it and see where it goes, but at the same time I've been backing up my articles just to be safe.
They provided us a place to write, helped us get noticed, and we all made a little money from it. It's their platform so nothing we can do either way.
I'm optimistic, but still cautious.
Should we be concerned? Maven's ToS says that we own all contributions but then they go on to say that they can do anything they want with it. Or does this simply refer to message boards and forums?
We do not claim any ownership rights in any User Contribution that you may post to the Website, including all comments, images, opinions or other content, whether posted by you through a User forum, on a message board, in “comments” sections or elsewhere and including any username or other identifying information posted by you; provided, however, that User Contributions shall not include any content posted by a User that is already owned by us, our Channel Partners or any of our respective affiliates. After posting your User Contributions, as between us and you, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such User Contributions.
Then this:
By posting any User Contributions on or through the Website, you hereby grant to us, our relevant Channel Partners and our affiliates, licensees and other authorized users, a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license to reproduce, publish, translate, use, modify, create derivative works based upon, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute such User Contributions on and through all media formats now known or hereafter devised (including, without limitation, through the Website or mobile devices), for any and all purposes including, without limitation, promotional, marketing, advertising, trade or commercial purposes. Our use of such User Contributions shall not require any further notice to you and such use shall be without the requirement of any permission from or payment to you or to any other person or entity.
By posting to the Website, you represent and warrant that:
· You own or control all rights in and to the User Contributions and have the right to grant the license granted above to us and our affiliates and service providers, and each of their and our respective licensees, successors, and assigns.
· The posting of your User Contributions on or through the Website does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, trademarks, contract rights or any other rights of any person.I hope someone can explain this. It makes me wonder.
I am concerned about all this.. I'm reading and reading all the forums about this and still have unanswered questions as probably many people do. My articles are VERY seasonal meaning in March-August I average between 5-6 thousand impressions per day. (right now next to nothing since they are swimming pool articles) just saying I make a pretty penny during those months. Is this all going away now? From what I'm reading sounds like Maven is just going to claim the rights to everyone's work and kick us to the curb.
Wow! How does that work? The writer owns the rights of his/her work but grants all the rights of his/her work to Maven?
Paul's attorney needs to explain this to us. Something here doesn't seem right. Either that or we are not understanding what this means. We should not have to grant anybody rights to our work unless we sign a contract saying this...and nobody but Paul is signing contracts and HE does not have the right to give our rights away.
I wouldn't panic, this probably is about forum posts and comments on articles. I would think that HubPages will retain its usual ToS as it applies to writers.
Thank you for this.
Any User Contributions the writer retains and they do not claim ownership of - ok, so far so good - but then they state that the writer grants them a worldwide license to distribute any User Contribution?
So if I write an article, publish it on Maven, earn some money but then decide to quit, set up my own website and take the same article off Maven and decide to stick it on my new website, I cannot? Or I could withdraw the article but then could not re-publish because of a possible duplicate content red flag situation?
It is a bit confusing. In the above scenario I would want to keep ownership of my original article, and the right to withdraw it at any time, for whatever reason.
I'm looking for clarification here. Anybody see into the future?I could be wrong, but haven't I seen something about this concerning our own forums, and found that HP owns the posts here, just as is being described?
We need clarification asap. This is extremely important.
Yes it is. But even at the very worst, they can neither take nor keep them without our permission. HP does not have that right to give them as part of the deal. It must be granted by the hubber.
Unless a hubber signs a release with Maven as per their TOS.without realizing that "keeping our work" is part of their deal. We need a clear answer on this one.
But Hubpages will no longer be in charge. Maven will.
It depends what the definitiion of User Contribution is in the document.
"Should we be concerned?" Yes we should.
".. you hereby grant to us, our relevant Channel Partners and our affiliates, licensees and other authorized users, a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license to reproduce, publish, translate, use, modify, create derivative works based upon .. "
Thanks theraggededge for noticing this.
Helium had a similar clause (before it went bust). Even though you retained the copyright, you couldn't remove the article from their website. So if you wanted to move it to your own site, the newer article (the one on your own site) would appear as duplicate content in search results and so be down-ranked in searches.I have seen this same type of wording in sweepstakes such as Ellen's. I bet the same wording is already in Hubpages terms of service. I doubt there is any reason to panic but still would like to have it clarified.
I hope Paul gives us another thorough explanation about the acquisition and what it all means, it would really clear things up for a lot of people.
Also noticed that CPMs have really plummeted since the announcement but that could be due to the time of year, I don't know what the retention rate is for ad earnings when moving from December to January.
If the articles are under our copyright, why would Maven be able to hold onto them, wouldn't that violate the ToS and be an illegal action?I expect we will at some point be asked to agree to Maven ToS. If you don't agree you could remove your articles at that stage. But if you want to remain writing under the new owners then (see my earlier comment re Helium) you will not be able to delete your articles going forward.
You would still retain copyright, but that is almost meaningless if you cannot remove them from the Maven site.You were never allowed to delete your articles on Helium, ever. I discovered that years before Helium was sold, when I wanted to delete one of my articles and they wouldn't let me. That's why I stopped writing there.
I think a lot of Helium writers had no idea they couldn't delete until the sale happened, and they assumed it was a consequence of the sale - but it was like that all along. Accepting RR Donnely's TOS didn't change a thing.
In the case of Maven, though, you are right. Currently, the HubPages TOS says "By posting Hub Content on the Service, You grant HubPages a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license, for as long as Your Hub is displayed on HubPages. Whereas Maven's TOS says "perpetuity".
There's no ambiguity there. It's a HUGE issue.Totally agree. This MUST be changed in some way that makes the change permanent.
If you agree to write on their site, you are agreeing to their TOS, which right now says THEY will have full rights forever for your work and other than paying you for normal pageviews, etc, will not have to pay you a dime, for example, if they decide to make your hubs into a book.
Okay but then what, if you remove all of your content or close your account before the platform change then where will you go? At least you'd still be getting paid for page views if you keep your content on the platform and it's still your copyright.
You really think you'd benefit more by putting it all into your own site/blog, that's not an option for many if earnings are your end goal. Unless you have a successful niche and have years of experience with your own sites, then you're barely going to make a profit.
Now if you do plan on doing something with your content like turn it into or book or if it has strong personal value, then I would understand.
However I am concerned about their ToS because that's not an option I would like, so I do hope it doesn't have to end up that way but like I said before, what else am I supposed to do?
The HubPages team is totally committed to the HP community.
We joined the Maven to help independent publishers and passionate experts (you!) to have better monetization, traffic, engagement, and technology.
For folks that saw great CPMs over the 4th qtr, this is a small taste of the synergies we can create.
The first order of business is to improve monetization more. I'm flying out tonight to sit down with them to see what we can do first.
We know how much people care about HubPages, the network sites and all the great relationships that have been created over the years. That's important trust we don't take lightly.
We will be giving more detailed updates soon!Thanks Paul, that's really reassuring. I can't wait for the updates and to see the monetization efforts take flight! It's been a long time coming and I, for one, am ready for it. It also inspires more writing when we see more results. Your time and consideration for all of us is greatly appreciated.
You need to read this entire post, particularly the part about Maven's TOS.
Paul, we trust you. Just not so sure we trust James Heckman. Writers have been consistently screwed by web publishers in their search for profit.
We would all be horrified if our content would now be permanently given to Maven (regardless of our retaining copyright) so that they can use it in perpetuity without payment wherever they liked.Paul: Can you not answer the question for us as to whether we will have full ownership and use of our hubs once they transfer to Maven? In other words, can we remove hubs and post them elsewhere if necessary without creating duplicate content or other problems. We really need an answer now about this.
I agree, TT2, and I'm annoyed with myself for not spotting that in the Maven TOS. The Maven TOS matches the one that used to apply at Helium.com. The way that worked was, although we legally kept copyright of our articles, it was meaningless because there was no way to delete them off Helium. I guess it was a loophole which they were exploiting.
The risk would be that if we allow our Hubs to be moved to Maven, that could count as "consent" to the new TOS. So if we're not happy with that situation, we may have to remove our Hubs before the transfer, as it may be too late afterwards.
I'm praying that Maven will modify its TOS to match HubPages' as part of this merger. Fingers and toes all crossed.Good Catch, Marissa! It certainly is something to be concerned about. I would have never known what could happen if you hadn't wrote about your Helium experience. Thanks
I didn't spot it, theraggededge did.
I'm at a point with my writing where it probably won't make much difference to me - I can't think of anywhere else I would move my articles to, frankly.
However, I would still like to keep the right to delete my work. If, down the track, Maven started behaving badly and I wanted to leave, I'd hate to walk away and let them have the benefit of my articles.Yes, good points. I feel the same way. Good catch from theraggededge.
This part of the TOS is even worse! Maven has the right to:
"reproduce, publish, translate, use, modify, create derivative works based upon, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute such User Contributions on and through all media formats now known or hereafter devised (including, without limitation, through the Website or mobile devices), for any and all purposes including, without limitation, promotional, marketing, advertising, trade or commercial purposes. "Our use of such User Contributions shall not require any further notice to you and such use shall be without the requirement of any permission from or payment to you or to any other person or entity.
I've been looking in vain for a clause that indicates these clauses apply only to comments, forums etc and that actual website content is covered by a separate clause - but I can't find one.
I find it surprising that people have been willing to move their entire website over to Maven with this kind of TOS in place - but then, I didn't read every inch of Helium's TOS when I joined either (and neither did most people, I'm guessing).Wow! Yes, definitely something we need to consider if changes are not made to the TOS. I don't understand why the TOS have such little of the contributors interests in them except that most contributors probably don't read them or request changes so the company has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Yes, I think most people just trust that a company wouldn't be so unscrupulous as to put that kind of wording into their TOS. But Helium did, and they took full advantage of it, too. They even published anthologies of our short stories and poems without telling the writers or paying them a cent.
That's awful! No wonder they went under. Underhanded people like that who don't consider all the contributors as important members of the team who deserve consideration and respect are bound to fail eventually or leave a trail of failed endeavors in their wake.
This is not a question that should have to wait for an answer. Anybody who has put years into writing for HP, especially those who are doing well here, should not want to turn over their long term rights to anybody UNLESS they are willing to pay for them. Even then, doing this would be questionable.
TIMETRAVELER2 asked
"Paul: Can you not answer the question for us as to whether we will have full ownership and use of our hubs once they transfer to Maven? In other words, can we remove hubs and post them elsewhere if necessary without creating duplicate content or other problems. We really need an answer now about this."
It's a very simple and very basic question - the answer to which must have been factored in to the construction of value for the sale
The fact that it's neither been addressed nor answered actually speaks volumes.
We are taking a list of all the community questions so that we can prepare detailed answers. There are multiple months of work ahead before we have the opportunity to close.
We have a high level plan that we have shared on the blog. We will share additional details in the future.
https://blog.hubpages.com/2018/01/05/hu … aut-maven/I appreciate the fact that Paul has always given us feedback when we've needed it. Thanks Paul.
There seems to be some considerable degree of confusion as to:
* what is being sold to Maven
* what are the terms and conditions going forward
I started a draft of an answer to TessSchlesinger who made the point
"Because Maven doesn't know what works and Paul does? Maybe Paul is not only bringing traffic but expertise? And maybe Paul has to prove that expertise which is why it is a contract rather than a sale.
My draft response - which was buried on the site (way down the response so not seen) so I deleted it and reposted here. It now seems very much relevant in the context of subsequent comments about terms and conditions of sale AND CONTENT USE
__________________________
So here's how I see it
The value of the sale purportedly lies in the intellectual content of the platform - and that in turn lies in the team currently supporting it.
It can't lie in the content - because every last bit of that belongs to us (who coincidentally do not get a sign-on fee) and every last bit of content can get up and walk away tomorrow.
When you are buying something where the value lies in the platform and the personnel then you structure the payments so that they remain engaged and deliver the value for a minimum period.
Otherwise If you pay upfront, then there's nothing to stop them walking away and starting up another business. It's not unusual.
Where the value lies in the content, you hope the content owners:
* DO NOT NOTICE you have NOT made them an offer and
* DO NOT DISENGAGE and
* DO NOT REMOVE THE CONTENT!
Otherwise you'd look pretty silly.....
Speaking personally for myself, I've seen enough to know what I will be doing
1) The content does not belong to Paul - it belongs to us - hence Paul cannot deliver that value to James Hackman
2) The words at the bottom of each HubPages Hub state "Copyright © 2018 HubPages Inc. and respective owners. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners."
We have always been told that this meant the copyright of the platform belongs to Paul and the copyright of the content belongs to us
3) No part of the deal recognises any value in the content i.e. due value to the ORIGINAL content creators
4) if you don't want to get caught out by any change in terms and conditions which means you might not be able to remove your content in the future then you might want to think about backing up now and where you might put it next - if you choose to delete and remove it from the site.
People might want to ponder on what allowing others to edit your content actually means in terms of "terms and conditions" going forward in a new context.
I've never allowed any of my hubs to go to the Niches because I won't allow any of my content to be edited by anybody else so that they might claim some level of authorship over it.
That was precisely because I anticipated that this sort of deal would arise at some point and this sort of confusion over content ownership would also occur and I wanted no part of it.
My content might be a tiny minnow in the overall scheme of things - but it matters to me - and nobody else is getting any claim of ownership over it in big words or small print.
One final thing. I've been around long enough in finance and business in the past to recognise and understand the type of operator James Heckman is. You only have to look at the track record. NOT a person like Paul and NOT a person I would want to trust with my content.I recall looking at Helium's TOS and decided there and then not to write for them.
So,as Maven's TOS are the same, I will, with great sadness and regret remove all my articles from hubpages, regardless of the fact thatI will lose money and have nowhere to go with them.
Why?
1. I see absolutely no reason why someone else should effectively benefit from my work in perpetuity with no payment to me or even a token byline.
2. I would not want to be part of a commercial venture that had so little respect for human beings that it considered it acceptable to steal the work of the writer, and believe me, those TOS basically use legal jargon to justify theft.Well said. My conclusion also.
I've been removing content - that process will now speed up.I'm not removing content until I am fully aware of the impact on the HubPages contributor community. To move before that, would be rash and, for me, foolish.
I agree. IF the Maven TOS remains as it is, I will think carefully about my options. However, there is always the possibility that their TOS will be modified to treat Hub Content separately, as it is in the HubPages TOS, or some other change might happen.
I would say that anyone with a large number of Hubs should be keeping copies of them, but I think it's much to early to consider deleting stuff.Bear in mind that a TOS can be changed at the will of the host, so even if they change it now, it can be changed back in the future and we might not even know it happened!
Likewise. I'm not moving until Paul Edmonton has clarified exactly what the TOS of Maven are. If there is anything where Maven in any way can use my work without my permission or where I am not paid or where it is in perpetuity, etc. I close my hubpages account.
My view is that this is very definitely worth saying so that nobody "doing deals" is under any illusion as to what might happen to the content should any such proposal be made
From a personal standpoint I have to stay put and wait and see what the final deal will be, then make a decision one way or t'other. I would like to hope that Paul and his team will not sell us down the river so to speak - but business can be a strange beast at times, as many have noted.
I've had record views and earnings over the past few months so for me to pack up now would be foolish.
But this Maven move is so damn annoying. It took me 5 years to build up to a decent income and now this happens! Spitting feathers.You need to take a look at my new forum post. The TOS of Maven gives them the right to to what they want with your articles without paying you for any profits they get from doing so...forever! I'm in the same boat as you as far as time spent here, earnings, etc...but I do not want to give my rights away and now feel that unless something is changed in Maven's TOS permanently, that's exactly what I will be doing. I love writing here, I'm doing really well financially, but I don't think anybody should be profiting from my work other than taking a cut from income for providing a writing platform. This is a horrible situation.
It's already in their TOS. I put a new post on the forums about it. Read it. If this isn't changed, I'll be closing my accounts here.
I want Paul to be clear about if that is going to be changed, if that refers to all data on hubpages, or just the people who are 'invited' to write for Maven.
Good point. I'd like to see the answer to that myself!
I think you have the answer given that the issue has been raised a number of times and there has been no answer.
That's my concern as well.
1. Will the HP TOS remain in place for those writers who are NOT invited to join Maven?
2. For the writers who are not invited - and I now hope I'm not - will their work reside on both sites or just HP and the HP niche sites?
3. When the merger is complete, will HP modify the TOS?
I sincerely hope Paul decides not to go through with the merger. We all have concerns and they're valid ones. Maven is a young company and from what I've read in this forum, James Hackman is out for himself with no regard for those who help him earn a living. I'd hate to see HP's writers get thrown to the wolves. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I think this merger will break HP and its team of talented writers, UNLESS HP remains in place as is for those who choose not to defect to Maven.I absolutely agree with you. I would prefer it if Paul would find someone to run HP for him and just sit back as CEO to ease the workload stress but still be able to have input into basic operations. This would be so much better for him and everybody else.
I should maybe clarify. I never saw HubPages as the long term home of my content - except possibly for some of it.
I've been steadily transferring content ever since I arrived.
I agree it will be wise for some who have invested in making changes and would like to continue with this platform to wait and see what is proposed re new terms of service under Maven.
However I would caution that
1) you might well be waiting a long time to get any guarantee as to how it might work under Maven
2) any promises given now might end up being meaningless once the paperwork is signed in something less than 90 days time
3) you might not get any guarantees at all - or at least none you would like
My recommendation would be to make sure that you have all your hubs backed up by the end of March - together with a copy of the current Terms of Service i.e. before the 90 days have elapsed re. the letter of intent and finalising the contract documentation.
Plus work out what you would do if you decided you want to maintain 100% ownership of your content - should the need ariseThe problem is NOT backing up one's work. Like many other people on this website, I write articles on MS Word and then transfer my work to hubpages.
The problem is finding a paying market for one's work.Not everybody writes their hubs in Word first.
Many write them direct into the hub.
Many also update their hubs - by editing within the Hub - after they are written.
PLUS the only PROOF that they were written by you and published earlier is a file of its published format with a time/date stamp.
Hence why I save my published hubs as pdfs and html filesSo a file copy on a computer (which is dated) is not a proof of authorship?
Not as good in evidence terms
A file copy on a computer is not evidence of publication online.
I'm inclined to agree. Sad day. I guess I'll be rehoming all of my work.
I have played pennystocks / OTC stocks like Maven for years. I have to agree that there are many bad operators in that space and unscrupulous businessmen that manipulate things as much as they can to make money. I don't know Mr. Heckman's specific past, but someone mentioned driving his last company into bankruptcy. These are reasons to be cautious regarding the Maven leadership, if you are a writer who is depending upon HubPages for income or you just want to retain control of what you have published on HubPages once the new owners are in control. I think it's fair to say that Paul et al. always had the writer's best interest at heart and wanted to make things the best they could for Hubbers (even though it was painful at times), but there are no guarantees that the new owners will live by this creed. Caveat emptor!
However Paul is not the owner after they've signed the documents - and what he says may have less weight than people might like.
JUST FOR THE RECORD
EXTRACT from current HubPages Network Terms of User last updated January 27 2017
https://hubpages.com/help/user-agreement as at 9 January 2018
(I've just made a copy of this and I suggest others do likewise)
I've inserted some bold for the really relevant bits right now - and what you need to see in future
6. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS; CONTENT OWNERSHIP
The Service and any software used in connection with the Service ("Software") contain proprietary and confidential information that is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws. Except as expressly authorized by HubPages or advertisers, You agree not to modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on the Service or the Software, in whole or in part. In addition, the content, organization, graphics, design, compilation, magnetic translation, digital conversion and other matters related to the Service are protected under applicable copyrights, trademarks and other proprietary (including, but not limited to, intellectual property) rights. The copying, redistribution, use or publication by You of any such matters or any part of the Service, except as expressly allowed herein or via distribution tools HubPages makes available to Users, such as RSS feeds and widgets, is strictly prohibited. HubPages may at any point make additional software and tools available to Authors in connection with the Service ("Additional Software"). Authors who incorporate such Additional Software into their Hubs may have to agree to additional terms and conditions before using such software, and all rules and obligations outlined in these Terms apply to the ownership and use of such Additional Software.
HubPages does not claim ownership of Your Hub Content or Author Content. Such content will be owned by You or a third party from whom You got permission to post the content. By posting Hub Content on the Service, You grant HubPages a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license, for as long as Your Hub is displayed on HubPages and for a commercially reasonable time thereafter, to reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, distribute, modify, adapt and publish the Hub Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Your Hub on or in connection with the Service. By posting Author Content on the Service, You grant HubPages a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable license to reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, distribute, modify, adapt and publish the Author Content on or in connection with the Service. You may remove Your Hub Content from the Service at your discretion. You may not remove your Author Content from the Service. HubPages may preserve and store Hub Content (including, for a commercially reasonable time, Hub Content you have removed from the Service) or Author Content, and may disclose such content if required to do so by law or if HubPages believes in good faith that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process (e.g., subpoenas); (b) enforce these Terms; (c) respond to claims that any Hub or Content violates the rights of third parties; or (d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of HubPages, its users and the public.
The Author, and not HubPages, will be fully responsible for all Hub Content or Author Content that is uploaded, posted, transmitted or otherwise made available by the Author on the Service (collectively "User Content"). HubPages cannot guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of User Content. HubPages does not pre-screen User Content, but will have the right (but not the obligation) in its sole discretion to refuse or remove any User Content for any reason, including User Content that may violate these Terms, or that is otherwise objectionable. HubPages also cannot take responsibility for anything that Your Hub users may do in reliance on the Hub Content You post in Your Hubs.Do the TOS sound familiar to you, Randy?
Yes, which is why you shouldn't rush to abandon the one you've got now, until you're absolutely sure of the facts, as you say.
A few years ago I set up a site so a few other hubbers and I could share content with income splitting similar to hp. (Remember when hp was floundering before niche sites?) it has just been ‘languishing’ and neglected the past couple of years due to improved hp earnings and recent demands on my time.
If we discover the Maven deal doesn’t look good for writers, I’d be happy to make room for some more members ... particularly those who are prepared to help us moderate it and get it into shape. It has a private members’ forum where we offer each other help with keywords and cpm etc, without attracting attention from plagiarists.
The site won’t suit everyone and I can’t guarantee how much money anyone will make, but it is there as an option if we get a core group together and combine our skills to make it work.
No harm in emailing me if you have any level of interest in moving hubs in the future. Meanwhile, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the future of hp looks like.LongTimeMother, a large part of the concern on this forum thread has been about the fact that Maven's current structure is a content farm (i.e., it's a generalist site not a niche site). As you know, even HubPages acknowledges that the generalist model is doomed to failure - that's why they went to the huge expense of creating the niche sites.
So I wonder why you would bother trying to revive a generalist writing site?
I think, if people want to strike out on their own, then it would make far more sense for groups of specialist Hubbers to get together and launch their own collaborative sites - for instance, DrMark and Solaras and Agilitymach could all get together and create a dogs site, if they don't want to go it alone.That would only work if at least one of the people had the technical ability to set up and run a site as well as help the other writers monetize it.
Why doesn't everyone just calm down, wait a bit, and see what happens?
Right now, the devil is in the details, and Paul announced yesterday that he was going to Seattle to talk about some of those details, and what they mean for us. He can still walk away if it really isn't what he was led to believe.
In the meantime, I wouldn't go crazy writing new material. I am still moving more hubs that I wrote years ago to niches, except I am making more than I ever was. I would miss that, but wouldn't miss revising the same hubs over and over to meet continuing, arbitrary standards.
If this site fails, I've already found clients from Google traffic that came from HP. If you aren't making money now, don't keep writing. Wait and see. If you are making money, you may have other articles you wrote another time stashed away. Use those to keep your account current.
There is only so much information a business can talk about before the deal is done. Paul can't tell us everything, because he doesn't know yet either. All this speculation is just getting out of control if you read it from the beginning. I understand being worried, but unless you can support yourself working here (and I doubt anyone can), is it really so life threatening?I don't think you totally "get it", Jean. Some people here DO depend on this income to help themselves financially, but aside from that, this change could mean giving up rights to work people have spent years creating. That's a pretty big deal. Furthermore, those who don't have tech skills could be losing all of the benefits that HP has so wonderfully provided for us that make writing online even possible.
For example, I use the stats page to help me see which hubs are doing well, which need to be deleted, which need to be upgraded, etc. Will we even have a stats page with Maven?
Yes, the devil is in the details, but before making such a major announcement, Paul should have taken the time to find out what those details were because to let people sit and "wonder" what will happen creates all sorts of problems.
While it's true that people selling businesses can only tell their workers so much, it is only fair to be very clear to them about what they will be getting themselves into if they stay on.
Finally, it has been made pretty clear that James Heckman has a bit of a spotty background in terms of how he buys and sells businesses and that Maven does not have much of a track record. When you combine this with some of the information found in Maven's terms of service, it's pretty unsettling.
All of this speculation will stop as soon as Paul provides us with clear, detailed information about the role of HP looking forward, our rights to our work and any choices we might be able to have.
One thing I know for sure is that Timetravaeler2 will never become a Maven channel but under the right circumstances will remain with HP. I don't want to do business with a company that wants to steal my rights and might sell out or go bankrupt within the next few years.Hi Long Time Mother,
I think some people can depend on what they make here for what my Mom would have called "pin money." I've done a bit better than that since the niches, and do look forward to the 28th. But with all the changes HP has gone through, I know better than to depend on any money that comes from here. I joined about 6 months before the first algorithm change, and am still keeping up with the annoying changes. It took me well over a year to make the minimum payout in 2011.
I did gain an astrology following and have clients from my online writing. But I also wrote on Wizzley, Helium, Bubblews, and had my own blog. I worked hard to get my name out there, and it paid off for me.
I like the stats page, but can see what hubs perform best. I get actual questions and comments on them. Plus, you can see what page of Google they are on. People I haven't seen in 20 yrs. have reconnected with me from just that. I am not on Facebook.
A business merger like this doesn't have all the big questions answered in a week. And we have more info than when you wrote back to my post now. Paul will need time to work out all these details, it will likely take months. And it may change, we don't know, but he is telling us what he can (or at least there are more answers on here than there were yesterday). We retain ownership on our writing. I have had so much stolen. But when I find it, it's on some foreign site with my hub and maybe 2 other posts, it's not worth it to pursue these people (and I usually can't find them anyway).
I don't want to do all the tech details either, I've had failing blogs. My astrology clients are separate from HP or any site. And I haven't written anything new here since 2015, I had so much material from all the other sites. Just keep posting material or improving what you have, I was just suggesting that it's hard to see everyone panic when it's too soon even for the HP administration to have worked out all the details.
It's still best not to panic.
Marisa, if you were familiar with the site I mentioned you’d know it is not a ‘generalist’ site so that’s not a problem. In fact it was set up to slot into a ‘niche’ before hp started creating their additional sites. (Which is why it would ‘not’ be suitable for everyone, as I mentioned.)
The key similarity with hp is the fact it was set up to split income in the same kind of way as hp. Income from views of advertising on any author’s pages can automatically be allocated to them.
I’m hoping the new deal is great for hubbers, but I’m keeping the site running just in case my friends and I need to breathe new life into it at any time. I don’t really want the workload, but it is nice to know it is ready to accommodate relevant content if needed.
No doubt others could do the same thing if they put their minds to it.I was a bit puzzled by your post because you seemed to be making a general invitation and I did think you had started a specialist site, which would therefore be suitable for only a small percentage of Hubbers. I must have skimmed over the bit about not being suitable for everyone, sorry.
Just a tip for those who don't know how:
How to save a Word version of any web page (converting an HTML page to a Word docx file):
1. Save the Web Page as HTML: Navigate to the page you want to convert. Open the menu in your browser and choose Save page as... (or use Ctrl+S) and save it on your computer.
2. You should now have an .htm or .html file. Right-click this file and choose Open with..Microsoft Word.
3. Save as DOCX: Go to the File Menu and choose Save as.... Change the file type to .docx and save.
4. Embed Images
If the document contains images those images might only be linked. Usually you'll want all images to be embedded inside the Word document.
Go to the File Menu and choose Info. If there are linked images you should see a link icon on the right. Click on Edit Links to Files.
In the dialog select all images you want to embed in the list (use shift-key to select multiple images).
Click the Break Link button and then OK. All links are removed and the images are embedded in the document.
5. Clean Up: To get rid of unwanted elements just delete them, such as menu, website logo, related articles, etc. then Save.Thank you. Much appreciated. Didn't know that.
A caveat: If, like myself, you are using an older (i.e., Win 2K) version of MSWord, it can neither save in nor read .docx file extension. It only sees and saves in .doc
I had to download Open Office to be able to read .docx files. Likewise for Excel files saved as .xlsx those, too are a no-go for earlier versions of Word; it only reads .xls .
Why Microsoft would fail to make their newest system backwards compatible is beyond me. Win2K reads prior versions just fine. Why they had to screw with it, and mess things up...I guess they never heard of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
I'm just hoping that the above instructions will work in Open Office as well. For the most part, I write my articles in Word, then copy/paste them into capsules for the hub. Naturally, there were a good number that were written directly into the hubtool capsules.
And, with 300+ hubs, can I remember which? Not a chance! Plus, only articles I've written in the last couple of years are accessible. The rest are on my old computer, which has a dead power supply.
Okay--rant over.I use Word 2000 and downloaded a compatibility pack from the Microsoft website that allows me to read and save Word 2007 .DOCX files. (And possibility later versions of the format in the current version of the converter)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/downloa … dd6d2=True
I don't feel super confident in anything at this point, but I do think this TOS business will be cleared up. No point in overreacting, though I feel like I've been doing nothing but over the past few days.
If the TOS plays out the way some are suggesting it will drive many, many good writers from the site, and hugely diminish the value that HP brings to the table in this deal. Paul, and even this Maven guy, have to know this.
Think of it: If you write under your real name, under some interpretations of those terms you lose the rights to content you created under your own name, including your profile picture of yourself. If you've used pictures of your kids in your Hubs (which I know Paul and Robin have) you lose control of those pictures. If you've shared personal stories, Maven has the right to do whatever they want with them.
If you've created a branded account, a brand you've expanded to other areas of the web, you lose control of that brand.
Again, that's going by the way some are interpreting this, which I am not entirely sure I agree with. That won't stand, and I can't imagine it is anything these other channel contributors have agreed to.
Of course there is one big difference between the other channel managers and HubPages. They are the creators of their brand and their content, and they chose to make the deal with Maven. That's their choice, one they made because they obviously think it is good for them.
HubPages did not create the content, or our personal brands (or of course our names). HubPages made this choice that affects all of us, and it is their prerogative to do so. It's their company.
However, we, as content creators, are our own entities, our own little "companies" so to speak. (Though not legally, most of us anyway.) We do business with whom we feel is beneficial to us. If a bad situation presents itself, we can remove ourselves from that situation.
Personally, I am going to put myself and my content in whatever situation is best for me. I hope that continues to be with HubPages, as it has been for six years now. It has been a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship that I hope isn't now marred by corporate nonsense.
Paul says this is the best thing for all of us. I am not yet convinced of this, but my ears and eyes are open. I am prepared to be convinced, if Paul would just take some time interact with the community - the people who created the content.Of one thing you can be certain, everyone will try to act in their own best interests.
Another thing you can be certain of is that you don't know for a fact what another person thinks is their best interests - and whether or not that also includes your best interests.
Think about it....True enough. That's why this paucity of information is so troubling.
We all need to make our own decisions for our future and that's tough to do without knowing that the heck is going on.I think Paul Et al. had a vision of building a website for anyone to publish works online. I think they were driven by trying to be successful and by trying to keep their writer's best interests in mind. They've had their ups and downs, and now they are trying to cash out by agreeing to a takeover by Maven, who is run by people we know little about. They most likely are in it for the money only, not the love of publishing. Their onerous ToU certainly point in that direction. I will wait to see how this shakes out. I agree with others that I DO NOT want to lose control of all the writing I have done here at HubPages over the years to people who will use, change and make money off my writing. This may just be the impetus to create my own blogs.
If the ToS is not modified before any and all hubpage content is moved over, is that considered consent from the writers? I've read and reread the Maven ToS, and it doesn't sound like we will be able to remove our content once it's there; even if we don't sign or otherwise consent to their ToS. I saw someone ask if writing or otherwise having content on Maven qualifies as accepting the ToS and I'm wondering the same. I don't want to accept the current ToS, and therefore do not want any of my content moved if nothing changes. I would never write on Maven, but would Hubpages moving content there be equivalent to writing and therefore accepting the ToS?
I would like to know exactly how one would be legally accepting the ToS of a network/website. Can they claim we legally accepted the ToS if we didn't authorize the move? Do we authorize the move if we don't remove our content before the move date? Whether or not we knew when the move date would be? Right now the move date is open and not specified. If we don't get a move date, will we wake up one day with our content on Maven? I know it's being moved slowly and should take 3 years to complete, but no one knows when it's starting or which niche/vertical site they are starting with. Before Hubpages articles are shown on the site will we be asked if we accept their ToS? If we deny would we then be able to remove our work?
I understand the contract/sale (whatever it should be called) is to take place within 90 days, but are we really going to get a notice before content starts moving? I don't see that happening, especially when simple questions are still left unanswered or being ran in circles. I understand Paul/Hubpages doesn't own the copyright to our work, but can he still authorize it to be moved to Maven without our consent? From the Hubpages User Agreement posted above it sounds like they would legally be allowed to move it, because Maven would be their system now. "You grant HubPages a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license, for as long as Your Hub is displayed on HubPages and for a commercially reasonable time thereafter, to reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, distribute, modify, adapt and publish the Hub Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Your Hub on or in connection with the Service". It sounds like that is similar to what happened when Squidoo went under and Hubpages took them over (I never wrote for Squidoo so I can't speak to specifics, and am only going off what I've seen others comment in this thread). However, I'm assuming because of Hubpages ToS those who wanted to remove their content could if they chose to. Currently, it doesn't sound like we will have that same opportunity with Maven.
Something doesn't feel right here, but I also have nowhere to go if I remove all my content. I have had trouble since the beginning with plagerisim and I'm not about to let some company legally steal my work and profit from MY years of hard work. How long we have to wait before making any decisions in regards to moving/deleting articles would be very benefical. However, something tells me we won't have time or the necessary notifications before the move to allow us to delete work if we want to.
I think these are all questions that need answers now. Waiting does not guarantee a change in ToS, it also doesn't guarantee concrete answers that we most certainly need to make crucial and educated decisions. Best case scenerio, ToS changes and doesn't get changed back (someone mentioned this, if ToS changes are we not legally obligated to receive copys and then be given the opportunity to accept or deny!?). Worst case scenerio, we all lose everything we've worked so hard to create. It seems to me we have the most to lose by waiting, and nothing concrete to gain.I'm not a lawyer but I've seen some of these cases play out before and I'm pretty certain that:
1) IF the terms and conditions were changed significantly as to copyright without prior notice and scope to accept or reject there would be a major legal problem. (I can see if I can dig out what we were told on the Squidoo move. There were legal words about if we did this or if we did the other and/or what was deemed to have happened)
2) IF Paul signed a pieced of paper which sold all the copyrighted content which is currently specified as being owned by the Hubber as at the date of the Letter of Intent he would face a Class Action suit brought by Hubbers (I can't imagine people would not band together to do this)
3) IF Paul signed a piece of paper which said he could deliver the copyright of content which is CURRENTLY stipulated as COPYRIGHTED TO HUBBERS - and then was unable to do so - he's NOT going to realise his financial targets because everybody will remove their content.
Bottom line I think the Courts will play fair by hubbers given the HubPages Terms of Service (which is why I suggested everybody make a copy of it!) Lawyers could get rich though.
If the site suddenly goes offline you know for certain he's in a pickle.
The one reason why I'm pretty sure this is a CRITICAL AND BIG ISSUE is that this and future remuneration models have not been addressed at any time. Despite questions being asked.
Don't just listen to what is being said - look out for and be mindful of what is NOT BEING SAID.What happens if Paul siged a piece of paper in which copyright of the work was not discussed?
What happens if Heckman assumed he could have it and Paul assumed things would stay as they are?
Nobody is saying anything...If either of them did either of those things then they FAIL the due diligence test!
That is exactly what has me feeling uneasy! The run around in circles and the questions still left unanswered despite multiple attempts by several people. I've always been fairly good at reading between the lines, and in this case I'm not liking what I'm not seeing. I have several articles that are not performing well and I'm very tempted to remove them and get a head start on some cleaning house so to speak. Then again, it's the major earners that I would not want on Maven. My low traffic articles would be of no interest to them, at least in the beginning.
I made a copy and did notice that Hubpages has 7 days to notify us of any big changes to the user agreement in which we would be allowed to accept or deny, but I'm unsure if that would apply in this case. I'm assuming it would, but I've never been involved in this kind of thing before and I don't want to get caught with my hands tied behind my back with nowhere to go and no content.
I agree there are some major legal issues IF any of the things you brought up happened. I also agree many hubbers would band together, although I'm not sure what rights we have and that's my main concern. I need to know my rights, and how I can use them; but I also don't have the money to hire a lawyer for copyright. I make money, but not enough that I think my husband would agree to any legal action in case things go amiss.
All the WHAT IF's and unknown's are making me very worried. I hate speculation, but in this case not taking action sooner could cause me to lose everything it seems.
I'm just wondering whether the copyright at the bottom of each of our articles counts for nothing?
The Maven TOS says that being published on their site means that you are allowing their site to use your work in perpetuity wherever they like in the world with no payment, no need to acknowledge you as author, to be able to change your work, and you can never remove your work from their site.
So, yes, we would retain copyright but we would give them permission to do the above simply by being published on their site...Why do current authors on their site agree to those onerous TOS? They can't be working for free.
Either because they are employees or they sold their sites to Maven or both - sold their sites and stay on to generate the maximum sale price via stock options?
Sound familiar?They are getting ad revenue and stock, if they reach certain goals. Most people never read the TOS; they just agree, because we are in the habit of agreeing, if we want to use any service on the Internet.
Do you know how many writers have been conditioned to believe thatif they want to be successful they must write for free in order to get known in the market place?
That said, I don't know what their payment is.Maybe those writers are paid something but never read the TOS.
You say no payment. Does that include page views and ad revenues we are currently getting paid from Hupbages? Your description sounds like they are basically stealing all of our work and getting all the profits and we are entitled to absolutely nothing, if they choose not to pay us. Whether that be in a lump sum or for daily views, no payment is necessary?
With Maven's ToS, I think Hubpages would be legally obligated to give us the 7 day notice in our user agreement, before anything gets moved there. Maven's ToS is so vastly different than what we have here, I have to hope that we wouldn't be forced to simply agree to it, when Hubpages moves our content for us, because Maven is now their system too...Heckman's CV "Heckman landed at Yahoo in May when Yahoo paid $28 million for 5:1, a company founded by Heckman that acted as a buying consortium where premium publishers could theoretically sell their “class 2” inventory at higher prices. It was the third company Heckman headed that resulted in a sale, having run Scout.com, which sold for $60 million to Fox Interactive Media in 2005, and Rivals.com, which sold for $100 million to Yahoo in 2007. Unlike many top ad executives, Heckman has entrepreneurial cred. "
The salient words in that last post are
"Heckman's CV"
He would say that wouldn't he?
If you want to due due diligence you look at what everybody else has to say - and provide the URL so people can read it for themselves re. source and credibiltyThat was from 2011, right after the sale. There are more recent and pertinent articles regarding the final disposition of Scout, which appears to have declared bankruptcy. We have seen the links to the more recent info already, but here that is again for anyone new to the conversation that can't take time to read through the entire thread.
http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-f … web-2018-1
I've been with this thread from the beginning and have read every thing I can get my hands on including the links posted by everyone and the ToS of Maven and Hubpages. I am not new to the conversation, but things are still very unclear, as answers are still left unanswered and others are being ran in circles. Nothing is clear or certain at this point in time.
As Glenn has again pointed out we are getting contradicting information.
This contradicting information is ultimately what could be all of our dimise depending on how this all ends up playing out. If Hubpages truly stays their own network we would keep Hubpages ToS, however, if they are 301 redirected it is not out of the question that we would then be forced to follow Maven's ToS. At least that is how I see it.
I have no idea what you posted or what it means. I am not knowledgable in stock at all and do not know how to interpret anything you just quoted from "Heckman's CV"."Heckman's CV" relates to this post https://hubpages.com/community/forum/14 … ost2935179
Just my 14 cents worth... I think why would a business that's looking to expand screw everyone over? Who then is going to write for them knowing this? It would be big news if that's what happens. I just don't believe that a Maven would say "ok, now that we've acquired everyone's articles and don't have to pay them anything, guess everything's great!" They would not ever be able to expand if they did that.
Same reason Yahoo did with Associated Content?
People like Heckman realize that most writers will not walk. They will continue to write for far fewer pennies and will be led by the nose with promises.Maybe.. you could be very right, but successful hubbers are not going to write for pennies. I'm just hoping something REALLY good comes out of this. (Hoping and wishing, that is) who knows. I'm not going to freak and remove any content at this point. I think everyone's anxious to hear some definitive news on all of this. Again... Why would they screw people over? Somebody mentioned Helium before that basically did this and where is Helium now? Just saying. I don't think these people are stupid. I would think they would recognize that in order to grow and keep new content that they NEED WRITERS! Again where will they get quality articles if they are paying pennies?
Oh, these people are exactly that stupid.
It takes a particular sort of 'businessman' to do that, and James Heckman is exactly that sort of businessman.
Paul Edmonton is not.
Why did About.com screw over their employed Editors?
I didn't hear about that. It doesn't surprise me, but what happened exactly?
Happened round about the time they had their big change in format prior to them becoming their current incarnation. dotdash.com
One of my friends was one of their long time editors - and I'm talking years - and she suddenly found herself without a job.
Plus all her content credited to her was still on the site - with her name on - and there was no way she could remove it or copy it and yet it was enduring perennial content - which is still there.
As they say
"Our vibrant properties, built upon 20 years of data and expert-written content, are among the biggest, fastest-growing and most trusted brands on the internet."
https://www.dotdash.com/our-brands/
I'm guessing this is what Maven wants to look like.
Let's say it's one of the main reasons why I take a somewhat circumspect view of those who move information article sites on to another incarnation....The Spruce has been competing with my website all of a sudden. I don't like these people
. They got crappy content outranking my work and also some other pretty good websites who are below me. 300 words with affiliate linked stuff. But it is possible that Maven sees themselves like this in the future.That's my view. The thing you need to remember is to look at who's writing it. Is it a new bod trying to make their income targets or what? Some of them simply don't stay the course.
Follow what they're writing then improve on it - longer, better, more pics etc! Then yours becomes the more recent..
If you've been writing for years you can outlast them!My content is longer, better, more pics, more videos and not just content for the sake of writing content. It's disappointing to see these sites rank higher when they have nothing new or even helpful to share.
I've found tweeting complaints to Google sometimes works!
It's very odd that if you raise an issue to do with a problem about Google on another platform they seem to pay attention.
Very odd - but like I said it does sometimes work.
There are two things that nothing has been said about
1) Copyright
2) Future terms of remuneration
Both of which are of great concern to Hubbers so one might have expected them to be covered in the announcement email if there was nothing to be concerned about.
The same as Helium so. They kept my articles without payment. I really do hope this does not apply to us on Hubpages because I would hate to have to take my articles off the site. Will wait for confirmation from Paul first.
You can be pretty certain Paul is reading everything that's being said in these threads
If he hasn't addressed the issues of
1) copyright
2) future Maven terms of service
3) anticipated future remuneration model
within the next 24 hours to most people's satisfaction you can be more or less certain there are problems afoot.
You can then wait as long as you like, but my bet is you won't like the outcome.
The most important thing is for people to be prepared to take content down very fast.
You don't want to be faced with archiving at the same time as deleting - because one thing I can tell you as somebody who has systematically archived and deleted a load of hubs in the past, the process is irritatingly long winded and slow. I had to start breaking it up into tranches of hubs to save the air from going blue!
Plus if everybody is doing it at the same time the system will crash.So it's a gamble. If he can do it again, and you have shares in the company, you could stand to turn your article into $50-100K in stock. Or nothing. That is how gambling works, no guts no glory
You are mistaken. Your articles does NOT make money. The owners of the company and the shareholders make money - not the writers.
I think to date, these writers are shareholders. The executive team is paying themselves handsomely. Heckmann $300K and top 2 execs $250K a piece, plus another 30 or so staff members, so I don't see where shareholders get anything until the company sells.
Why do you say there is no ad revenue for the writers?The writers are NOt shareholders. Shareholders are people who buy stock in the company. Writers do not buy stock in the company.
Where do you see that the writers get paid?Paul said if you were chosen by Maven to be on that site, you would have the opportunity to earn shares in the company. I can only imagine that they promised these folks shares in the company to move their work over. Shares that cost 15 cents a piece are easy to hand out, that is the cheapest lure on the planet. By adding these writers they now have a product and valuation is going up.
Lots of companies on the pink sheets hand out shares of stock like jelly beans. They pay their professionals (CPAs and Legal) in shares of stock, if they have a good enough pitch.
I didn't see that. Can you link me to that post?
More than ever, that concerns me. It means the writers aren't being paid.I don't know how to link it. I think it is on the 3rd page chronologically, but here I copy and pasted Paul E's post.
Joining Maven is all about the opportunity to better serve independent publishers and passionate experts.
Eric, I saw your questions and it's imperative to the success of writers to get more traffic and better earnings without worrying about the technical aspects that go on under the covers - We share this. Maven has programs that our different than ours. It's invite only and they get stock.
Our niche sites are performing really well and we are going to build on this for all the little guys and bring you better monetization, tools, and ways to communicate with your audience.
Our first area of focus is going to be on monetization. We believe we can improve yields. So, we are going to do that first.
We will keep you updated on all the plans as we get to know our new team.Here' the link to Paul's post:
https://hubpages.com/forum/post/2933858
I don't think it means that writers aren't being paid, only that they may get stock in the company if they join Maven.
We read that very differently.
The people who have been invited to join Maven so far have certainly been offered stock. They are all writers with their own websites, generating their own income, with a sizeable following.
In the same way, hubpages has been 'invited' to join Maven, so yes Hp has been offered stick, but habpages, like all the other sites who joined Maven, is generating its own income. Maven isn't paying anyone who is 'joining' it.
I am almost sure that if Maven 'invites' someone from hubpages to join it, it will be those hubbers who already gave substantial traffic and followers.
They will, after they join Maven, however, not be generating income via hubpages after that however. They will be responsible for generating their own income. They will, however, be offered stock.
Thanks, but no thanks.Too soon. The contract is not yet in place. Won't be for about 90 days. Also, I believe people won't be "invited" until their work is already online under the Maven name.
Is the deal a dead cert? If negotiations don't go well perhaps we will end up status quo or is that just wishful thinking?
That doesn't make sense. If their work is already under the 'Maven' name, what is the point of inviting them on to the Maven site if it's already on the Maven site?
I know that Paul said a few writers from hubpages would be invited, but having read various reviews about Maven, I think that means something different to what we think it means.
I think Maven's operating policy is that whoever has a bucket of traffic is 'invited' to have a 'site' on Maven in exchange for their technology plus some shares. I don't think Maven supplies ads or anything else to those who are invited. I think those who are 'invited' either generate their own income or just wait for the shares to take off.
In other words, those people would be leaving the hubpage income plan and chancing it with Maven in return for shares.
So whoever will be invited, will be invited within the next few months...
Just my opinion.Invited indicates that people can turn them down, right?
My point is that if you read the story of Maven, it is something like this.
James Heckman goes about buying up small companies, building them up, then selling them for megabucks to big companies.
This time, he bought up the shell of a small company that was already listed on the stock exchange (so it was already listed).
He changed the name to Maven.
He then looked around for a few successful writer/publishining websites on the web and invited these people to join Maven in exchange for shares.
Hubpages, I suspect, was one of those 'invited.'
I still don't see where you are getting the info that the maven channel partners are not splitting revenue with maven team. Where are you seeing that they generate their own incomes? Maven is a marketing firm, they bring Ad gimmicks to the table. Is there something on their site/tos that explains this? Has a maven channel reported this?
I am saying that those 'writers' who have been invited generate their own income. It is not income paid by Maven.
I think this episode is revealing
1) who are the natural gamblers in life and
2) who are the people who read the small print and check the sources and generally act on the cautious side when it comes to what happens to their assets and money
Me - I'm the latter. You can keep both the guts and the glory - I'll take common sense and being able to sleep at night any day! I trained as an accountant and have an MBA and spent a lot of time while doing the latter reading Harvard Business case reviews of companies which went down the tubes and having to analyse why it happened. I'm retired now so I write for pleasure - but I'm very well aware that for a lot of people this is important income - which is why I chip in my two pennorth.
Speculators are the people who can make big bucks. but they're also the people who crash and burn.
So circling back to that early post of Paul's, we will not be required to sign the Maven TOS unless we are invited to join, and choose to do so, or things change, and we are assimilated into the Maven. Resistance is futile. lol
Christy contradicted that in her post on January 6th:
"The Network Sites will continue to exist and will be absorbed into the Maven Network as channels under the existing Maven Segments, but we have no planned changes to the HubPages Earnings Program at this time. Network Sites will keep their names and existing content, and we will continue selecting new content to be moved there from HubPages as well."
Source: https://hubpages.com/forum/post/2933837
Saying "Network Sites will keep their names" doesn't mean much. If they are hosted under a common domain (i.e. content farm) then the existing URLs will simply be 301 redirected to the place where our niche sites will reside on themaven.net. I wish we would get a clear statement on which way this is going to end up.
