Foul balls and line drives at Forbes

Forbes chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin notes some of the business publication’s line drives and foul balls this year.

Here are a few:

Contributors:

Line Drive: Quality is stronger than ever, enforced by vigorous vetting and monitoring, updated newsroom management systems, data analysis and a Webinar education program. Contributors are making more money: 75 will top $45,000 for a freelance job, the average full-time reporter salary, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Six will top $100,000. A branded contributor home page with easy access to archival posts was released on desktop, and FORBES Editors’ Picks on Google News.

Foul Ball: A contributor’s commitment to FORBES needs to rewarded in new and meaningful ways. A meetup schedule is required to foster a community feeling (the first was held in San Francisco last month). More #AskForbes chat/posts must also be arranged (we held 19, mostly with staffers). More verified Twitter people would be a plus, too (we’re now at 83, including staff and contributors). Additional income opportunities need to be developed. The ebook initiative that begins in January (24 will be published in 2014) is a start.

Payment Model:

Line Drive: The loyalty model (contributors get paid more for monthly repeat visitors) strengthened quality and increased compensation for our most dedicated contributors. Adjustments made to the incentive plan increased the scalability of the network.

Foul Ball: Consumer migration to mobile (smaller screens command lower ad rates) and the growth of longtail traffic (51% of monthly readers consume content that is more than a month old) signals that payment plans should better reflect mobile CPMs across content categories.

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