The State of Triond, The Hot Content List, and Making Money Here
Again?
Has it ever crossed your mind that you ought to at least know something about your employer? You write here, yet you have no idea who the hell Triond is. Don’t feel bad…. I don’t know, either. They’re in Israel. That’s about it. They’ve had millions of dollars poured in in recent months. Beyond that, I got nothing. Know why? Because it doesn’t matter. Triond is a cog in a much bigger machine. This will explain.
Triond: A Writing Opportunity Worth Investigating
(Click ^^^)
The point here is that you need, if you’re actually here to make money or attract viewers, to understand some facts about Triond.
Contrary to popular opinion, this is not a writing site. It’s a publishing site. And a mechanical one, at that. Sure, there are people who monitor it, but not many. Triond isn’t here to teach you, improve your writing, or make you a better person. Triond is here to make money. It’s a beautiful, soulless process. Darwinism at its finest. Those who learn how to operate within the system make money and stick around; those who can’t leave. You can complain all you want about the naughty language you see in the forum. They don’t care. They don’t have to care. It costs money to care.
I’m not saying you can’t use this site to better yourself as a writer. I’m saying it’s unlikely.
Triond views matter. If you have any intention of succeeding, you need to realize this. Every week or so, someone frustrated by not reaching the ‘hot content’ list publishes an article about how awful, how biased, how ridiculous the list is. Trust me, it’s anticlimactic as hell when you get there. You hear stories of an article showing up at #7 on the list with 20 views. It happens. I’ve had some do that. But if you’re on the list with any consistency, it’s because you’re already getting views up into the thousands. You suddenly realize the couple hundred Triond views aren’t all that significant after all. The hot content list is a glorified scoreboard (to quote Onlywaytobesure), and nothing more. There isn’t a magic garage door opener to get you in.
You can make money on Triond. I am, at best, a slightly above average writer. And I’m not the sharpest guy in the world. But last month this made me almost $1,300. It’s nothing resembling a living, but it’s a hell of a lucrative hobby, don’t ya think? The point is that too many people give up on this far too soon. There isn’t a magic button we push to get views on an article. We promote ourselves. We spread our work across the internet. We serve it on a tray to anyone who will read it. I spend around 15 hours a week on my Triond. (not counting the times I drop into the forum). It really isn’t that complicated. But it does require a commitment of time. And a measure of patience. It’s taken me about 18 months and almost 400 articles to get to where I am. I’ve had a few articles reach into the millions, several dozen that climbed to the hundred thousands. And as I said, I’m genuinely nothing special as a writer.
The lack of rules here is a bad thing. We enjoy an immense freedom here. There are other similar publishing sites out there, but Triond gives you complete freedom, and you own your work. Wake up, people. It may cost you a few crudities along the way, but the freedom is what enables us to succeed here.
Triond will go on with or without you. Or me. It is, essentially, a tool. Take a look around; the tool isn’t that hard to use. Hell, even I can do it.
You may also be interested in:
Why I Feel Triond, is The Best Pay for Content Site, for Creative People
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Tags: article, hot content, list, publishing, triond, views, Writing
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February 18th, 2010 at 3:24 am
And, like I’ve said before, ads make the money!
Where are you advertising for such high views?
February 18th, 2010 at 3:25 am
Nice post!
February 18th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Nice insight!! And very inspiring too. Thanks for sharing!!
February 18th, 2010 at 3:56 am
mnof, tell me something i dont know, like how to get on that list with no fluke. what is the formula?
February 18th, 2010 at 4:11 am
Great article. All we have to do is work out how to tap the Triond machine to our advantage, Good insight and good advice.
February 18th, 2010 at 4:52 am
Nice one, Mnof. I may not always comment on your articles but I am still reading them.
Happy days for you eh?
February 18th, 2010 at 5:17 am
Brilliant article, I write 14hrs a week give or take and I’m not earning even a pocket full of change, but I’m sticking with it. At least my work is now pulished and I can say without lying to a publisher that I have over 100 articles published on the internet and I’m paid for them. LB
February 18th, 2010 at 5:49 am
mmmmmm????????????
February 18th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Encouraging I’d say. I still have a long way to success, making my cents per day.
February 18th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Great as usual, I seem to always take something positive away from your articles, thanks.
February 18th, 2010 at 7:11 am
You renew my hopes in ‘online writing’ albeit, I have have a new gig. I won’t leave Triond, but have not published here in awhile and anyone that follows me on the Forum knows the reasons why. Still, I wish this place and the writers here the very best. Considering what they have to work with, that is quite some hope.
February 18th, 2010 at 7:28 am
I’ve been wondering for awhile if Triond is a sinking ship. The Hot Users llist hasn’t been functional for at least a year, the Hot Content list is inconsistent – since they changed it to the top
February 18th, 2010 at 7:40 am
I got cut off! anyways – since they changed the Hot Content list from the top 100 to the top 10 (or sometimes 7 or 15) I’ve made the list once, and only for a couple of hours, but it made a huge difference in my # of hits and I am still riding that wave.
I disagree with you on one word. We are not employees of Triond, they are not our employers. We are freelance writers, most of what we write is crap, and they can take it or decline it. They don’t owe us anything, nor do they need to give you a reason for declining to print our crap on their web sites (although if you ask nicely why something has been declined, they are very professional, and when they get to it, they will have a human editior read your article and most of the time they will publish it or tell you how to fix it.)
February 18th, 2010 at 7:43 am
I got cut off! anyways – since they changed the Hot Content list from the top 100 to the top 10 (or sometimes 7 or 15) I\’ve made the list once, and only for a couple of hours, but it made a huge difference in my # of hits and I am still riding that wave.
I disagree with you on one word. We are not employees of Triond, they are not our employers. We are freelance writers, most of what we write is crap, and they can take it or decline it. They don\’t owe us anything, nor do they need to give you a reason for declining to print our crap on their web sites (although if you ask nicely why something has been declined, they are very professional, and when they get to it, they will have a human editior read your article and most of the time
they will publish it or tell you how to fix it.)
Triond may be a sinking ship, so if the rats start leaving , we’ll know it is time to get off.
February 18th, 2010 at 8:20 am
Very good article! Thanks for sharing.
February 18th, 2010 at 9:20 am
An interesting article with some helpful advice Mnof. We are freelance writers, and yes we do have a lot of freedom; but the one thing that irks me most is a large portion of the work Triond publishes is simply sub standard and has very poorly written English. This unfortunately detracts from the many talented writers who use Triond and publish some excellent work.
I understand everyone has to start somewhere and we can all improve from constuctive criticism, but I feel a basic standard of written English should be met before an article can be published on Triond, at least then incoherent drivel wouldn’t appear on the hot content list as has happened in the past.
February 18th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Triond seems to work for some. I agree with you about them not caring about content even if it means defaming others as long as money is made.
I have noticed it has slackend in certain areas. These days it takes longer for them to update earnings of differnt articles and who can tell whether some of us are really recieving what we have really made. My January earnings were different from what I recieved in payment and when i asked I never recieved a response.
I am happy to hear that you can actualy earn the kind of money you do in this forum.
February 18th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
As far as the hot content list goes, I have been on it a number of times, Sometimes I wonder what the hec is going on. Sometimes I understand why I got there and sometimes I don’t. Other times I write something I think will make it there and it does not. I like triond best of all of the site because you can be more creative with it. Most other sites keep everything bland and predictable. I hate that. Too much of that on the internet. I do not see Triond making me a Millionaire, I have other venues for that. What I like about the things I put on Triond is that I can say what I feel in a way that I want to say it. What I like is when people get what I am saying, ignore those who do not as most can not or do not want to get some of what I have to say. In spite of those folks I have met a lot of like minded people who actually care about what I have to say and are saying similar things with their work. You weed out those on our friends list who do not share our views and tastes and get more that do. We all do this. No sense in spending time arguing with “friends” leaving comments we don’t like when we could be creating content. Just hope that triond does not start weeding out based on the, likes of a moderator or editor, and keeps this a place where people can express things in a way that they want to and get a little extra cash by doing so.
February 18th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
I figure I make more money putting my random thoughts here than I would simply storing them in a diary or notebook (which I will then lose) or typing it up in a Word document and then having that get lost.
So that’s enough of an incentive for me to put my ramblings here.
Regards,
Inna
February 19th, 2010 at 6:19 am
On the subject of ‘problems’ with the hot content list and hot users list, has anyone actually presented Triond with a suitable solution?
February 19th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
The Hotr Content list is done by some strange old algorithms but one rule is that it features an article from each of the Triond sites (pretty much). Back in the ‘good old’ days they used to just put the biggest hitters there. To be honest I think that is really what people are interested in seeing – it would be cool to see how many hits those articles are getting too but that may be intruding on privacy… but they do it on YouTube so why not on Triond?
Karen has a point though. The HC used to extend to 100 articles. I really wish they would put that back – it used to be a great way of discovering new talent on the site. Perhaps we should all ask nicely?
February 19th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Great article. It actually does take work to succeed on triond. Some people write up a one page article about cows eating habits, get it published, not promote it, sit and watch their content, and complain that they only get 3 hits on it in one day. It is true that you have to work at it. I have just recently started to get up to the point where I make 1-2 dollars a day, I hope to transform that into the hundreds or thousands per month, as you have. Good job on the article and on your previous successful articles.
February 20th, 2010 at 12:32 am
To follow on from RJ’s comments and Karen’s
Just today, I sent an e-mail to Triond requesting that they make the hot content list include 100 things again. And that it should be a much fairer list (based on views over the last 24 hours only). At the moment, stuff is put there with very little views at the expense of others with lots – what exactly is ‘hot’ anyway? lol
February 24th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Good article. Still I do have a feeling that the better articles get more traffic than poorly written crap.
Still I am quite sceptic with those who claim to earn a lot of money here. I also believe this might be an advertizing campaign for Triond.
February 24th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
What makes me respect the writer of this article is his honesty. What he says about Triond is an uncomfortable truth. It is not a writing site. Sure maybe someone will read your work and give you a better review than ‘great write’ or debate a point you raised, but in most cases, so that is a bit of a benefit.
One has to learn how to play the system to get the hits, have a morgue of zombies to get you that first foot on ‘Hot Content’ so that every newbie who walks in sees your article and clicks because they think it’s the best the site has to offer.
February 24th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I am also a bit suspicious about the hits they record. Using a counter one might find that there are 30 hits listed on Triond but 100 views on Stumble or Twitter. I have the sneaking suspicion that there’s a bit more rip off than meets the eye as well.
February 24th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
and again: triond views amount to virtually nothing. my articles dont get onto the list from the hundred or two views from here. its the thousands that come from elsewhere that do it.
July 16th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Good article… but, I’m not a Triond employee. I’m no one’s employee.