Revolution, freedom and justice for all

The title of this entry is probably a little melodramatic. I have penchant for being overly dramatic, so it shouldn't surprise anyone. Those words have been going through my mind this morning as I work on the articles for the day. I have my pace well set now. I will do three articles for the site that I can make the most money with. After I am done that, I will be free do whatever other work I feel like. Better yet, I can just kick back and do nothing at all, go for a walk or whatever floats my boat at any given moment. Life seems too good right now!

The point of this entry is to bring up a couple of points about Helium. This blog was started about Helium to track my work at home progress. It has taken a turn that I never expected when I first began the test. Helium remains my favorite place to go and the past twenty four hours just continues to prove to me why.

Many writers stopped writing for the site after several changes were made. One of the main issues was giving up exclusive rights. Many writers did not care for that because they felt as though they were being undervalued for the work that they have been doing. The price paid for an article does not match up with the demand for "forever" rights to the articles. Others, me included, didn't really care much about giving up the rights to the articles. Both sides were very vocal and the community at Helium turned into a "blood bath". That is, in my opinion, what happened. Many writers, once good friends in the community were tearing each others work down, treating each other with little respect and the list goes on. I imagine that I was just as bad as the rest at times. The good news is that it seems to have finally ironed out to some extent. What was the big change? An office staffer posted something on the forum that brought the writers back together.

Here is how it worked. Helium implemented the changes. It was likely because there was some information that led them to believe that big changes in Google algorithm (I still hate that word) were on the horizon. The changes to Helium infuriated people, scared people and made people feel devalued. People felt they were being treated more like robots than the humans they were. That is not the way Helium behaved towards writers when they first joined the site. It took a lot of people off guard. In Helium's defense, I would guess that they were afraid how the writers would react to such measures. Maybe they thought that the writers would just trust the decision or maybe they just temporarily forgot that the writer is a very important part of the business they do. In any case, I don't think that Helium ever implemented the changes to harm anyone. I truly believe that they felt it would help the site and the writer. I don't think they were prepared for what happened though.

Many writers simply walked away from the site. Others stayed, tried out the new changes. Some people were successful with the new changes, others found it too time consuming to complete the work for the amount of money offered and some just sat on the fence. Those that didn't initially leave the site hung around, did some work on Helium but had to find other ways to make up the money they were losing. Google then implements the algorithm changes, content sites all over the internet get slammed. When I say slammed, I mean down to the ground. Some were slammed so hard into the ground, they may never recover from it. Helium lost some views, but for the most part, people are still seeing good ad revenue from the articles they have written. To be honest, the articles that I have over at Yahoo! Contributor Network are faring much worse than my Helium articles. I am only seeing about a quarter of the views that I was getting previous to the big Google changes. I am still making some money from it though, so take heart, this is not the end of content sites. It is the end of bad information being passed around the internet. It is also the end of giving little to no valuable information in the name of clicks.

Anyway, the thing is, Helium has always been a different sort of community. For those who have been there for a long time, they know what it was once like. Helium cared very much about the writer, all writers. The good, the bad and the in between ones. In fact, many Helium writers will tell you how much they have learned about writing by joining the site. When that felt lost in the shuffle somewhere, it began to resemble too many other sites. Writers felt comfortable moving away from the Helium site because nothing seemed to be setting them apart from the rest.

Yesterday, in what appeared to be out of the blue, a post was made on the forum. "Dialogue needed" and it was posted by a Helium staff member. This is a staff member that has been around for quite a while and his presence on the forums has been very limited over the past year or so. Helium has been busy growing. Jim posted something that should make the Heliumites happy. He wanted us to tell him how we felt about things. What are our plans for the future and will Helium be a part of that? What made you leave if you left and what would make you come back? These aren't the exact questions, but that was the gist of it. With this post, it opened up a floodgate of very useful information for Helium staffers to think about.

Forgive the long post, but I think that it is important. Helium members responded. Most of them said they miss the way the community used to work together. This was a big issue. This includes the presence of Helium paid staff. It makes us feel more a part of the process. Honestly, if it isn't for the members, no website is going to make it work. People contribute to it. When a business begins to get too big for their britches (not necessarily talking about Helium), they begin to forget how they got where they were. They offered something that people couldn't get elsewhere. Loyal members of any website expect things from that website. One of the things Helium members expect of Helium is to remember that without the writer, there is no product. Sure, there is a ton of information on the website currently, but those current things become old news and eventually dwindle to nothing. I don't think Helium did it on purpose. I also think the members were just frustrated for different reasons, they began to bicker with each other and it sometimes went way too far. That was the main issue that people brought up over and over again.

There was still a split about exclusive rights. Many people didn't care either way and many said "no way, no how". They fought it by leaving the site and it appears that the site is hearing that voice now. I look for great changes in the site over the 2011 year. Heliumites put out some really great ideas on the boards that I think might, to some extent, come to life. We, the writers, know more about what happens in our personal earnings, what is going on in the social networks and what makes things work best for us and what could help us better determine where we should concentrate our efforts. Helium has made a very good decision in including the writers in a "dialogue" with them. It was a much needed pep rally that will result in action.

I hope that the writers who left because of exclusive rights will keep an eye out. It looks like there will be some changes to that rather new and controversial rule. This is our small Libya or Egypt. I thank God that it isn't our human rights that were trampled on, that it was only these issues that can easily be resolved. The point is, some revolted and it was enough to possibly make the change. I wasn't part of that Helium revolution and I don't apologize for that. I had no real qualms with the exclusive rights and still don't. But for those that it matters to, I am glad that things are working out the way they appear to be working out. I hope that we can get back to the type of community it once was because that is the only real thing that kept me there over other sites. It looks like it may just happen.