I started writing for Associated Content in January of 2009 after having spent months struggling on another content site. I fell in love with AC and amassed hundreds of articles over the next few years. I had the honor of being a category editor (a fancy term for the person who was allowed to pick the articles featured prominently in that category and write in those categories for a little more pay than what was normally offered) over several different categories, my favorites being Short Stories and Poetry. I basked in the glory of having links to my articles featured on sites like USA Today, CNN.com, and many, many more.
Things were bopping along really well. I wrote, I made fair money.
Around mid to late 2010, Associated Content sold to Yahoo! for a hefty sum (*cough* millions *cough*).
I had a few successes with the new Yahoo! Contributor Network. I had regular beats for Yahoo! TV and was a featured parenting contributor. I also did local and national news commentary for Yahoo! News.
This is when things began to fall apart for me. There were so many article shifts, so many page view degradations, and soooo much inconsistency and miscommunication that it was difficult to remain positive about the site. A lot of us seasoned writers knew then, based on Yahoo's history of acquiring websites, mismanaging them, and eventually shutting them down, that it was more than a probable outcome for Voices and YCN. While I was able to be open about the good and the bad when the site was still Associated Content, I couldn't do the same with YCN without the threat of having my account shut down. I found myself no longer knowledgeable or helpful to other contributors not long after Yahoo! acquired AC. My frustration was high, my passion was low.
I stopped writing in this blog in March of 2011 and stopped publishing with YCN in June of 2012. My life was (thankfully) moving away from content writing as I explored and pursued other avenues of writing. Though I haven't published content in over two years, I still logged into my dashboard every few months and still collected the page view royalties from my articles.
And now what we all suspected and feared from the beginning of the Yahoo! take-over has come to fruition.
"Dear Contributors,
You made the past nine years incredible. At Yahoo, we're focused on making daily habits more inspiring and entertaining. That means we're constantly reviewing our products and experiences and, in some cases, we have to make tough decisions to no longer support a product. As part of our ongoing effort to sharpen our focus, on July 31, 2014, Voices.Yahoo.com will be shut down; on August 15, we will make the final Performance Payment before Contributor.Yahoo.com closes. With the exception of content you provided to Yahoo under a work for hire license, or unless Yahoo arranges differently with you, we will remove from Yahoo all content published through Yahoo Contributor Network and rights for all of your Yahoo Contributor Network content will revert to you.
We know you have a lot of questions. Please refer to this FAQ for details.
It has been such an incredible privilege to share your talents with the world over these past nine years. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.
-The Yahoo Contributor Network Team"
Though I'll miss the modest amount of money I've been pulling in doing nothing for them the last few years, I can't say that I'm not a slight bit relieved. This will give me the opportunity to filter through the content I've written, resell some of those articles or retro-post them on my blog, and essentially get rid of a Yahoo! mail account that sees no less than 200 spam emails a week for useless things like Viagra and phone sex hookups.
I have learned so much through my time with AC and YCN. It was the jump start I needed to get the confidence to put more of my writing out there. My first love has always been fiction; I'm making great strides with it. I don't think I would've had the confidence and gumption to do what I'm doing now without having gotten that start on AC. I am also grateful for the wonderful friends I've made through the site. They are some of the most wonderful people I know.
So long Yahoo! Voices. It's been nice knowing you but I can't say I'll miss you that much.
I have so much admiration with these parting words composed. The talent and creativity gives highlight to the entire story. Job well done!
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