There's media and then, there's media , Part 3
Contributed articles became a very big deal during the Web 1.0 boom. Suddenly, print and online publications had a huge need for new content. Not only did publications start running news releases, verbatim, but they started asking companies to write opinion and analysis about their own industries. Public Relations companies were flying high organizing the rush of opportunities. Then the boom busted. Publications started disappearing, mostly print but several online publications as well and both journalists and PR folks started looking for other means of income. That did not, however, stop the demand for contributed articles. The publishing world found that they could fill a lot of space, especially on line, with opinion, white papers, technical documents and presentations that they didn't have to pay for and could cut their newsroom budgets even more. When webinars came around, they could actually charge companies to put their crappy ...