I do a lot of reading on the internet, both for research and for fun/stimulation. All too often I follow links with interesting headlines that go to worthless articles.
Obviously, the articles aren’t worthless to the people and websites that publish them. They must be making money, or at least attempting to make money off these articles that either contain no usable information or contain only the most basic and universally known information. They usually have filler in the form of a quote from someone saying why the article would be useful, if it actually contained any worthwhile information.
I would like to build a spaceship, but it’s hard when you only have a hammer and some pickles.
Some Random Guy That Might Even Be Fabricated, talking about the difficulties of building a spaceship.
Take and Make
Normally I respond to these lightweight worthless articles with an eyeroll and a sigh of haughty derision. Sometimes, I take to Twitter to mock them. Neither of these responses is helpful to me, and only puts more negativity into the universe.
Then, I had a thought. What if I took these lame, underwhelming articles, and wrote a version of the article that was a worthwhile, usable source of information? Theoretically, the only reason that article is getting published on CNBC, and then “repurposed” for Money.com, and then repurposed again for the Miami Bugle, or whatever is that the article has value for gathering eyeballs, traffic, or clicks. If I had the same article, the value might be worth it to me as well.
Unlike a website like CNBC, or Money, or whatever, as a single writer with a freelance writing business, my only expense in this endeavor is time. That means I don’t need the first-place search ranking, or 4,000 views a month, or whatever to make money. My biggest challenge will be writing short, but worthwhile articles without getting sucked into writing thousands of words, linking articles, and finding graphics.
And, as a bonus, I can feel like I’m imparting some justice into the world in the form of a useful, worthwhile article to counter the vapid trash that I was forced to read.
I’m still kicking around exactly how I will make this work, something like publishing the ones unrelated to my current platforms on Medium or something like that. I’ll keep you posted and let me know if you have any ideas.