Forbes head: We are not a content farm

Rob O’Regan of emediavitals.com interviewed Forbes chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin about the business magazine’s online strategy.

Here is an excerpt:

On my recent characterization of Forbes as a content farm:  

“We’re all about topic experts who are building their own individual brands around their expertise, their name and their knowledge. Within their expertise, they write what they want, when they want, and how they want.  They are not assigned stories. We often make suggestions, but 90% of what they do is bringing their knowledge and expertise to a topic when they choose to do so.

“We vet these contributors very carefully – very much like [when] we hire a reporter. We check out their credentials, their work, we talk to people who know them. You can’t just be a Forbes contributor because you want to be. You have to be selected.

“Periodically, we’ll cull the 5% of contributors who [are underperforming] for one reason or another – quality, performance, frequency, consistency. We’ll end our relationship with them as contractually we are able to do.

“All of that is vastly different from what I understand a content farm to be, which is very SEO-driven, assignment-driven, post-driven, vs. building an audience around your brand.”

Read more here.