Opinion on making hubs about "news" or "current events"

1. 70

   Neerizzleposted 13 years ago

   All I see on my news feed is articles written about the earthquake and I personally find that kind of annoying. I don't mean to call anyone out but it seems like what most people do is just read an actual news article about the event (in this case the earthquake) and then write it in their own words moments later. What's the point of doing that? If you were actually involved somehow and wrote your take on the situation and experience, while providing a brief summary of what happened, that would work, but why take something already on the internet and re-add it here? Especially when there's clearly a lot of people who are doing the same thing. I mean, we already have at least 10 hubs about the Earthquake.
   
   I know we all want to direct traffic towards our hubs and an event like this is a perfect opportunity for short term traffic, but down the road your articles will fade away with the rest and only the legitimate news articles on the subject would survive, so it isn't really doing you much good anyway is it?
   
   I know it's a time when a lot of disasters are going around and we have had disaster preparedness as one of the topics of the week but basically I'm just wondering how people feel about writing articles about current events that are already all over the news and have enough professional (and original) articles written on news sites already? Isn't it kind of redundant?

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   1. 87

      kschangposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I would only write about a "current" topic if it can stand on its own a week, a month, or a year from now.
      
      I wrote one about "27 Club" after death of Amy Winehouse, but it's more about whether 27 Club is real or just a myth. It's not one of my hot hubs.
      
      But then, my hottest hubs are the ones I spent the most time on, having published it for over a year, and constantly revised since.

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   2. 88

      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, but even then - what kind of traffic is it?  Short term traffic is usually other Hubbers, and they don't click on ads.  Pointless.
      
      Most Hubbers will tell you, to make money you want to attract readers from the search engines.  Unless you know how to generate backlinks fast, by the time the search engines start to feature your Hub, the news will be old news.  Plus, as you say, you're up against big news sites who are all going to rank higher than you anyway.
      
      I've known a couple of people write excellent Hubs on news items.  One was Lissie, offering information after the Christchurch earthquake (she's a geologist).  The other was WryLilt, running a Hub after the Queensland floods, as part of an effort to find missing people.  Both were written to help people in a crisis,not to make money.   They got readers because everyone involved in the crisis was sharing useful information.  That kind of Hub is worthwhile.  General Hubs about topical events aren't.

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2. 76

   IntimatEvolutionposted 13 years ago

   I have a couple of articles on news worthy stuff.  Like i wrote about the May doomsday date ordeal.  But overall it is a poor producing hub.  It did real well the week it was in the news.  Now it just sits there collecting 1 to 2 hits every other day or weekly sometimes.  So I say stay away from them. Just my opinion.

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   1. 81

      Ms Deeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Same here. That is what is interesting to me, but it is not 'evergreen' content. It is here today, and gone tomorrow!

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3. 82

   Urbane Chaosposted 13 years ago

   When I first signed up to HP, I wrote about current events for several months.  At first, they did well, but quickly fell off the charts as soon as the next big thing came along.  I spent so much time trying to keep up with things that it started wearing me out.
   
   So I removed everything and started over.  Now, all I write about are articles about history or travel.  They didn't pay off at the beginning, but over time they really started to pick up speed.
   
   Having done it both ways, I'll never go back to writing about news or current events.  The market's already saturated with that stuff, and it's almost impossible to stay on top.

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4. 76

   IntimatEvolutionposted 13 years ago

   I completely agree.

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5. 60

   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   Agree with what people say about short lived and traffic.  But I think if the writing is to make a point that perhaps hasn't been made, rather than just parroting the news, then that is a worthwhile exercise in terms of adding to the internet store of stuff about everything.
   
   Occasionally a news item will interest me or wind me up enough to just want to write - to get it out there - the thought your voice might be heard - while the media and governments just manipulate their version of the truth.
   
   No traffic, no sales.  But it doesn't all have to be about the bottom line.
   
   Maybe of those odd newsy articles will go viral, and maybe you can run a political blog off the back of it. Unlikely I know but stranger things happen.

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   1. 76

      IntimatEvolutionposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I did branch out of the norm in my hub, the response was still min.  So yeah I agree with their responses. Feel free to read my hub for yourself.  It is a hub written about a news worthy event, but with a different twist.  And..., as I said earlier it did well then it bottomed out.  I didn't parrot any news article.

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6. 61

   FloraBreenRobisonposted 13 years ago

   Perhaps  you should be asking if people in Virginia like fellow hubbers such as Cogerson if they and their families are okay instead of complaining about people writing about current events.-something that  you can easily  remove  from your feed by clicking on "ignore" or just not reading the article in the first place. Wonder if anyone on this site  getting hit  by Irerne as she is  a category 3-I couldn't care less about who writes about it as a hub-I just want people to be safe.

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