Time to invest in Helium? (Helium.com)

Member Name: freediveheaven

Product:	Helium.com
Date:	11/10/08 (422 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Potential to get published

Disadvantages: Many read the article

As someone who has just seen one of his stock investments wiped out and others take a hit maybe I'm not the best placed person to advise on an investment strategy at the moment in time however my title actually is asking whether you should invest your time rather than money in writing for Helium and I guess the answer to the question in my title is a "not at the moment". There are reasons for this which I will talk about later because in fact I have over the summer made a nice tidy sum from Helium however that is mainly because I selected a certain period to write in when they were running a promotion.

Now over time I have read some reviews by members on this site singing the praises of Helium both in reviews and on the various forums, I have also read contradictory opinions from those less enamoured of the site which tended to make me question the real picture, in fact I have since found out that some of the praise for the site has been written with those who have a vested interest in the site, something they did not really make clear, to my way of thinking this is a little similar to myself writing a review about Dooyoo and not mentioning that I have guided on the site, although I got no financial gain from guiding. On the other hand after using the site I find that some of the criticism is a little unreasonable and written by people who were probably too stupid or failed to invest the time reading about the way the site works, as to make money you do have to understand the site structure and various nuances otherwise you risk not maximising your returns.

So what is Helium? Well first off it is an American site so your earnings will be in dollars. It is a writing site similar in structure to Dooyoo and Ciao in that writers are paid for posting articles, it is a writing community which again relies on members not only writing but also rating other reviews in order to rank those reviews in order of usefulness. It has a large forum where members go to chew the fat (in America this could be a full time job given the obesity levels) and get any questions answered. There are various stewards on the site who also provide advice and support.

Now unlike Ciao and Dooyoo where you can pretty much write about any type of product I see Helium as being different. It is not so much a place to review every product under the sun, more a place to impart knowledge, the phrase "where knowledge is king" is one of their strap lines and they position themselves as a place where writers can get published and thee are a number of testimonies from members about the earnings they make and the jobs secured via the site. It is safe to say that those members are in a very small minority and for most members of Helium it is a pastime that might bring in a few bucks but in no way is it the Mecca of writing sites that some members attempt to portray it as.

There are numerous areas to write in and these are divided up into channels on Helium. A lot of the categories within channels are based on giving advice and there are some weird and wonderful categories that are very specific and narrow. Two examples of this, I found myself writing an article on "Writing a business plan for start ups" one day and then another was titled "Using Google Maps" as you can see these are very specific areas and to be honest this was one of the problems with the site. Some of the topics were just so boring that I could not summon the interest to write in them. Also because the emphasis is on knowledge over experience some of the articles posted are utter tosh and a regurgitation of wikipedia or some text book. On the plus side there is a massive array of categories to write in and many of them would fit into what UK writers would think of as Speakers Corner or Ciao Café reviews. Personally I focused on writing about what I understand and enjoy so I was able to cross post a lot of my travel articles and also write new material in the business and investing categories. I also wrote a lot in the sports and careers categories as well however I was disappointed to find that the book review category had some strange titles in it and for the classics they were more about themes or plot outlines rather than about the actual book. Posting a review is easy, you just click on the category and paste from word into the template, the minimum word count is 400 words which many who moan about churners on Dooyoo will appreciate is a good level.

One difference is that you also add a tag line which essentially is an attempt to market the article so that it will appear in search engine enquiries as on Helium your earnings are not based on member reads or a flat fee for posting but rather the amount of interest your article attracts from non members and advertising revenue. I could not find a totally clear account of this on the site and certainly this means payments are not transparent for your articles, instead you can just check each day to see if an article has earned you anything.

With writing members are awarded writing stars and you can earn up to five stars. This is a way to show the overall quality of your articles and is linked in part to the number of articles you have posted in what Helium deem to be competitive categories. This means categories where there are at least three articles. Based on the ratings of members articles are ranked from one down to the bottom, your aim is to get to the top and certainly in the top quartile for all reviews, naturally writing in a category with 40 reviews in it is easier as you only have to be in the top ten, write in a category with only 4 reviews and you want to be number one. The reason for this is because the star system also reflects not only quantity but also the number of articles you have in the top quartile rankings.

This is a potted version of how the writing stars works, first off your lowest ranked 10% of articles are ignored however this includes articles written in non competitive categories, then of the remaining reviews the average ranking of these must be in the top 25%. Then you need to look at how many reviews you have written to see what number of stars you can get. That is shown in a table on the site. If you have an average of 85% of articles in the top 25% then you get an extra star. Be aware that over time the position of articles changes, since I stopped writing on the site I looked today and my percentage has dropped from above the 85% level to below it as I'm not adding new reviews anymore and those I have written have dropped down the rankings.

You can amend articles once published however before the amended article an be accepted members will rate which of the two they think is better and only then will the new article be posted as a replacement if it gets more votes and then enter the rating system.

When you write a new article it is automatically posted in the 50% quartile rather than starting at the bottom, it will then move up or down the rankings depending on member rates.

Rating on Helium is unique, it is also encouraged and to be honest for some of the promotions rating is a requirement just as much as writing. First off the rating system is anonymous, members cannot see who rated or how they rated their articles. Once you have written your first review you will be automatically taken to the rating area and presented with two articles on the same topic which are set out on the screen side by side as article A and article B. You are basically asked to rate which one you think is more useful with three options, slightly more, more or by far. There is no sitting on the fence, you do have the option to skip the articles if the category is one you have written in or you do not know enough about the category. You are allowed ten skips per sign on period. Run out and you have to log out and re-enter.

Now the anonymous nature was hailed to me as a good thing as it means people rate on the merits of the articles and not on length or personality and in a way it is an improvement on the Dooyoo culture of rate your mates VU all the time especially if they are from MSE, however there are issues with the rating system which makes the anonymity a non starter for me. First off you have no real control over what you are asked to rate, for example today my first article was on being a movie extra, now I could skip but overall you find the same category constantly coming up and it is really tedious, I like to decide what and whose work I read. Also when reading in a debating topic you have to state which side of the debate you side with and then you only get articles on that side of the debate.

Secondly there is a problem with the rating star system. This is based upon the total number of rates you complete in a ninety day period but also an assessment of your rating quality. This quality measure is not explained satisfactorily anywhere on the site but you must be above the 75% mark, however it is not hard to work out that what it means is how much your rates match those of everyone else, so if you adopt criteria that is different to the norm then you will suffer, something I did at the start as I do not rate reviews on length but on clarity of writing, I soon learned that the majority rated on length and verbosity so I was eventually forced to do the same to protect my earnings.

Right now to earnings, earlier I explained that earnings per article are based on advertising revenue generated, there is also a monthly adjustment payment as well. To position Helium in terms of normal earnings then it is well below Dooyoo and also below Ciao in my opinion. However there are ways to boost your earnings. Firstly I wrote entirely when they had a Rewardathon promotion running which paid a flat fee over a three month period per review dependant on you having at least one writing star and three rating stars when the promotion ended, the more writing stars you had the more the flat fee was and you had to write in certain categories. There were plenty of categories to write in and provided you paid attention to your stars it was a very generous pay out and worth the effort. There is also the marketplace where you write set assignments that companies have set and they may purchase one for a fee, these range from $20 up to $400 that I have seen, being ranked one does not guarantee that they will take your article as I discovered the first time I wrote but I did get one $20 fee after I responded to a request to slightly edit an article. This is the area where you can make money and where the good writers will boost their earnings. The site has other competitions at various times. Without the Rewardathon Helium would not be worth doing as many articles will earn nothing and to date as a stand alone article my top earner has amassed $3 in about four months.

Payment is by Paypal so it is fine for UK writers, you do not need an American account and the minimum cash out is $25 and payment was made within two days with a confirmation e-mail arriving.

The site itself is well set out and very easy to navigate, it certainly has a community feel to it, some members are obsessed with punctuation so you do get the odd negative message, I did laugh at the member who wrote to suggest my article "had poor puntution", now I know that already and would respect their opinion more if they could spell. You have your own home page which you can personalise with a picture and information however be aware that if you message someone it is by e-mail and they will see your address. The steward I exchanged messages with was very helpful with advice, there is a forum which has loads of posts but also highlights the fact that if a forum becomes too large it is also hard to find the information you need on it so I avoided. I was there to make some money in a short period of time and this I achieved by understanding the site, writing my normal high quality material ( he ays with no hint of arrogance) and cross posting where the opportunity arose.

In general I would not recommend the site unless they are running a Rewardathon and then you need to understand how the site works otherwise you could write loads and end up like Charlie Brown, earning peanuts. The negatives far out weigh the positives for me but at least I think I have given it a fair run for its money and it was a nice little earner over the summer.

Thanks for reading and rating my review and apologies for the length of the review if you have got this far, if you did not hopefully you have nominated it anyway.

Site info at https://www.helium.com/login.

Summary: American based writing site