Thanks for explaining this, Emily. Looks like good news to me.

It LOOKS like a present...but I'm always leery of bombs. I'm bookmarking this just in case I spot a first alert or hot vid, and who knows...I may eventually be an expert in something other than my own navel lint.

Thanks! (I think)

nicely done!

Thanks Emily for being here for us.
rated with hugs

Sounds great! Thank you for the thorough explanation! xox

Very well explained. Thanks so much for letting us know about this!

awesome Emily, here's to exposure for exemplary stuff! Thanks.

Thanks Emily!
If only I was an expert on something. Hmmm....

Thanks, Emily! This is great to know about.

This is impressive!

thanks, emily. it will be interesting to see how this goes!

As a writer and filmmaker looking for breaks, this is great news. I used to hate giving away my work, but if it reaches a larger than usual audience, I'm all for it. I am actively seeking book and film deals. This could be quite useful for this purpose. Thank you, Emily!

As a writer and filmmaker looking for breaks, this is great news. I used to hate giving away my work, but if it reaches a larger than usual audience, I'm all for it. I am actively seeking book and film deals. This could be quite useful for this purpose. Thank you, Emily!

What about linking poems on an art or fiction page? I write narrative poems about human experience, and often ballads about current events. For example, I wrote a ballad about Bouazizi whose self-immolation sparked the Tunisian revoution. Would not such creative works generate more traffic and thus more adsense clicks?

Good to know. Thanks!

All this is good to know....thank you Emily...Good work BTW!

Thanks for the info...being a short story writer, I don't exactly fit into any of those categories, but it is good to know that they exist.

Oh that sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing the good news.
Will try my best whenever I can. Cheers!

Thanks. It would be lovely if the Adsense worked! Not that poetry is regarded as hot or first...

Thanks for this. I need new job tasks, more things to think about. Is there word for how much this new feature will pay?

If x is a variable and spurt , a small drip... so be it.

I did First Alert tag and even scooped CNN teevee re:Breaking news, meltdown may be happening now, and included 7 different sources with their links.
Where were you?

This is the best idea in a while, especially for serious writers who want to build audience.

Thanks to OS, I've spent the past year and a half working up to some good writing gigs.

Many good OS writers are also interested in starting or enhancing their careers, and this program will help.

A clear set of guidelines will bring Open Salon more in line with the other original content, open writing sites. Hopefully, more exposure, fresh viewers and more views will also up the income!

But the new Google SEO algorithm is wreaking havoc with content farms that only paraphrase or put up links, so Salon's formal and open writing pages should be showing up well in the search results for original content about a topic.

When I googled "news" for "Japan Earthquake", Huffington Post, a content farm, is now buried on page 4 of the search results because it is a content farm.

But I got to page 8 of "news" and still did see a Salon article. This journal should be ahead of the content farms, according to the new search algorithm.

For "Web", one Salon article showed up on page 6 of the search results. Page 6 is the abyssal zone of search results.

This might bear looking into.

I'm excited and impressed with you, and the staff at OpenSalon. You're always finding ways to update and improve. Thanks!

Will you be policing improper use of these tags or will all spam just naturally include all of these keys? I love the idea if it were going to be policed, but if it ends up being just a way for an unscrupulous person to get to cut in line ahead of those trying to follow the rules, it will look less good.

By the way, I'd like a keyword “thoughtful analysis” that didn't just favor being first, but instead favored being thoughtful. For example, something you put on a post after reflecting on a recent event and writing something the goal of which is not to be first to market. Is there any market for that? And what about “early warning” for predictions about things that will be breaking news? And so on... Seems like there could be a lot more of these.

Thanks Emily: I admit I get discouraged when asked about my expertise. I fear I'm an expert only in being myself and in observing how that's working out--or not, as the case may be. Breaking news--maybe. Hot videos--unlikely. However, I can write a review, or, if all else fails, head to the kitchen. And I promise to use correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc :-)

Stellaa said what I was thinking. We're providing Salon some free content, rather than have them pay a professional writer. Considering the abuse that Lezlie and Divorced Pauline took when they were cross-posted to the mother site, I'm not sure the greater exposure is such a positive thing for the OSer either.

@Stella, Cranky and Douglas -- As always, Open Salon is a place where you can write and comment about anything you want -- for free. There's no pressure to have your work cross-posted on Salon if you don't want it to be. But we know there are a number of users who are interested in getting cross-posted, so we're providing these resources for them. We've set up AdSense so you can earn some money from what you're doing, if that's part of the reason you're here. We also have had a number of writers who've transformed their Open work into paid story and article assignments, blogs and bestselling books.

@tg -- If you're having issues with AdSense, please email open.problems@salon.com so we can figure if the problem is on our end or Google's.

@Fred -- Sorry we missed that -- feel free to send me a PM if you're posting one of these over the weekend.

@Kent -- Since we haven't had a problem with spammers using other OS-specific tags (Cartoon Saturday, Real Families, and the weekly tags for the Salon Kitchen Challenge), I don't anticipate this will be an issue. However, if it is, we will certainly do our best to remedy the situation. Also, please feel free to send in more ideas for tags (and I'll keep the ones you've posted here in mind) -- we anticipate adding more of these as time goes on.

@Nikki, Susie and anyone else nervous about their "expertise" -- We also cross-post a number of life essays from Open Salon, and plan to continue doing so.

@xenolit -- Congratulations! That's great to hear.

@Matt, dianaani, Linda, Robin and others -- Glad to hear that you guys are excited about this... We are too!

Emily's using my defense of Open from another thread (thanks, Emily!) and I do want to say: I'm intensely sympathetic to the "scab" charge, and I'd like to evolve Open with Salon so that your pieces can appear directly on to Salon without the pasting and cutting process that we have now; so that you get the blast of Big Salon traffic to your blog, and the resulting AdSense money, while we make it possible to host our ads, too. We've always wanted Open to be a true rev-share operation, and had we known what we know now, of course, we'd be closer than we are.

But until we get there, we'll continue to try other ways to advertise your blogs on Salon as best we can, sending the all important eyeballs to your ads, and more importantly, your work.

Thank you, Emily!

I rate you -- infinity!

Thank you, Emily!

I rate you -- infinity!

Thank you, Emily!

I rate you -- infinity!

Thank you, Emily!

I rate you -- infinity!

All I know is, Open.Salon is pretty special, even if you take away the $$$ promised(I still remember the commercial on Independent Film Channel that brought me here, it was like WANNA GET PAID TO BLOG? Hell yea!!! But I stayed for the fun!!!! Really? No, not really!! It was the sex!!), the fame, the lights, that stupid cat named Tink, well, I'd miss him, a lot, but anyways, the idea of Open is pretty grand, a blog site with a built in audience, and they do come.

The tough part lately(well a good year or more now!), especially for new 'legit' writers is getting noticed. The Spam kills them out, unless you sp0t them rolling through the feed. I've noticed a few, tried to throw them a rope, get them noticed and they've thanked me by becoming a friend to the House of Tink.

Anyways, enough of the critical stuff, Open is still my only home for blogging/writing/playing checkers with the Gutter Krew when they're not in prison, yes, it has its issues, mostly the paint is falling off and I think the plumbing is exploding, but hey, it's still in a nice neighborhood!

"Really?"

Nah, I'm just kidding.....the neighborhood sucks too. But, it's the people, keep them happy and hand them one unicorn every few months, well, they'll bring in the readers from Iran.....

Loves and kisses,

Your friend,

Joanna Mitchem Foster Anakins Smith Walker (I like getting married!!!)

Thanks, Emily and Kerry! I deeply appreciate the exposure that both OS and Salon have given to my writing over the past couple years. I'm glad to hear that you're looking at even more ways for even more writers to gain that kind of visibility.

Like Kerry, I am very sympathetic to the issue of free content when many writers (and I have been one of them) are trying to make a living (or even part of one) by journalism or other types of writing.

I think what people don't factor in is how very difficult it is for unknown writers to break into print (to use the old-fashioned term) even without being paid a penny. And that is how virtually all writers begin -- by working for free, to gain experience and exposure. Many do it for years. If they're talented, hard-working and also lucky, they will move on to being paid -- although few writers ever make real money, or even a living. That's always been the model, and it still is.

While paying gigs (at least salaried journalism jobs) may be scarcer, there has been an enormous increase in the number of outlets for writers. Simply put, the web is a pig for content, and there's never been so much relentless demand for written work. Writers who supply it, and do so well, often move on to getting paid for their work. (Some even hit the jackpot with a successful idea for a website, book or other vehicle for income.) Again, even in the olden golden days, few writers made much money from their work. There's actually more avenues for writers now, with the means of publication more under their control, with websites, blogs, self-publishing, e-books and the like. It's always been hard to find an editor to write you a check, and it used to be the only way to make money writing. It's still hard, but now there are other ways to get those checks than from editors.

To suggest that most of the work that gets posted to OS or cross-posted from here to Salon would otherwise have been something that an editor would have paid for is naive. There's always been a limited pool of money out there to pay for writing, and far more supply than demand. That was true even before the internet began transforming publishing. The stats I heard from one highly regarded literary print mag are instructive: They get up to 1,000 submissions a month and only publish 6 or 7. Anyone who's tried to surf those odds for any time can tell you how daunting they are, even for unpaid and "little" magazines.

The opportunity to self-publish here for free is valuable enough. Add to that the built-in audience that OS draws, which is a huge advantage. (If you've ever launched a blog or website of your own, you know how difficult it is to get readers beyond friends and family.) Finally, consider the opportunity to get your work featured on one of the most respected online magazines, read by tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people, including editors, agents and others who might find your work of interest....

Yup, definitely an exploitative model. Hard to imagine why any writer would want to participate in that.

Good news all around indeed! A question - what would you consider an abuse of the "First Alert" tag? Would it be several hours after the news broke?

@Nelle -- Thanks for weighing in! (And it's nice to see you around Open)

@chillerpop -- It depends on the case and the coverage of the news. I think you can probably trust your gut on it.

Great news! While my own writing is not suited to such cross posting, I see so many others whose work more than qualifies them, and it is always a thrill to watch someone you admire gain the wider audience they deserve. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to cataloging Gabby Abby's research briefs on her navel lint:) Friends helping friends and all that......:))

We bomb Libya, I email, still sleeping, I guess.

Sounds like some good opportunities! Now to make good of them. Thanks for this. R

Thank you for this update. Curious though -- how does one know if their writing has been cross posted at Salon?

I'm fairly new to Salon, though I'm loving it. My question is actually more related to 'Open call'. I'm not sure if this is something which people just tag on to anything, or if I'm missing every single open call there has been since I joined. According to the instructions, it should be fairly easy to find whenever there is one, but I just never seem to find it.
Help?
Thank you

PS: I'm a journalist. Would that count as "expert opinion"?

Of course, the day I say I can't see something is the day I see it slap my face. Never mind.. :)

I promise not to tag everything I think of as "first alert" because that would make me, well, Donald Trump.

This is great! Thanks, Emily.

I think I'd actually be a bit more excited if you said you've fixed the spammer accounts and actually made Open Salon a website that loads on a consistent basis.