Engadget blogger resigns, the AOL Way’s first victim

NO DOUBT THAT CONTENT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, that’s one of a few reasons people still reading blogs and checking out their social networking accounts. Good contents will attract community and create conversations. Good conversation then can be curated as new content. That’s the amazing cycle, right?

What’s happen if a business entity just sees content as a commodity? They quickly claim their first victim. Long-time Engadget editor Paul Miller leaving the tech blog, as a response to Engadget’s parent company AOL‘s policy.  A few weeks ago, the company –that also acquired the Huffington Post and TechCrunch–  released an internal document called The AOL Way that contained the company’s policy to increase page views and then revenue.

But looks like the new policy is unacceptable for some folks in the company. Miller puts his farewell note in his blog:

I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the “AOL Way,” and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

At the end of the day, indeed, it’s all about business. But running a business on content, especially related to personal content, should be treated differently though. Let’s see contents as part of creating conversations with community, instead of selling them as a commodity.

Create crowd first and money will follow. In any forms.