Vilya
Karningul.boards.net
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By MATT RICHTEL, New York Times
April 5, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece -- not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing workforce of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers profess a love of the nonstop action. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another technology blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves -- and are being well-compensated for it.
"I haven't died yet," said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions of dollars in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleep disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. "At some point, I'll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen."
"This is not sustainable," he said.
Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.
Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work. Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: Write more, earn more.
Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures.
All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets, and is paid per reader. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.
He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled -- by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.
But make no mistake: Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.
"The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write -- that's kind of cool," he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, "I just want to lie down."
Said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo: "If I don't hear from him, I'll think: Matt's passed out again. It's happened four or five times."
April 5, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece -- not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing workforce of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers profess a love of the nonstop action. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another technology blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves -- and are being well-compensated for it.
"I haven't died yet," said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions of dollars in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleep disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. "At some point, I'll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen."
"This is not sustainable," he said.
Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.
Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work. Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: Write more, earn more.
Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures.
All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets, and is paid per reader. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.
He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled -- by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.
But make no mistake: Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.
"The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write -- that's kind of cool," he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, "I just want to lie down."
Said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo: "If I don't hear from him, I'll think: Matt's passed out again. It's happened four or five times."
