What are your thoughts on the new system Helium has.

I personally don't care for the new system and have made money on helium for the past two years but I like associated content better. Helium doesn't have a lot of articles that really interest me and some of the writers there have real nasty reactions if you beat them in a contest. I have been published in the marketplace and have won a contest and I got singled out by some writers at one time. It was not pleasant. They don't like it when a woman is winning in what they deem a man's area of knownledge, motorcycles mainly. Two of my articles were deleted from a contest because I was the top dog and the contestantw all men grumbled. I was given my work back but it cost me my place in the contest.

Upfront Payments are based on the number of new articles you submit in a month and the number of stars you have One Writing Star pays $0.50 per article Two Writing Stars pays $1.00 per article Three Writing Stars pays $1.50 per article published You will earn even more with four or five stars! You now need one rating star to get daily revenue share. This is much more fair than the old system. Previously some writers expected other people to rate their articles, so they could earn money from their top rated ones, without doing any rating themselves. It only takes a few rates a day to maintian one star, and now Helium offers a bonus of $3 per month for those who maintain five rating stars. I think it's great that Helium are rewarding more active members in this way. Anyone who does not want to rate can repost their Helium articles onto another site, or onto their own blog, but they will soon discover that to make money from other sites requires them to spend time networking and commenting on other people's articles. It's much easier just to rate a few at Helium every day.

I have heard of Helium but do not know much about it at all. I do not think it is fair, on what they are doing though.

I havent been active in helium for months.Maybe i will go and check out the site again.The last time I logged in there, I got bored because the site seems to be slow in terms of pace and activities. I will check on it later.

I'll admit that I don't go over to Helium as much as I should. I have a freelance job that I bid on and won at GetAFreelancer.com and I also write for Associated Content. I choose Associated Content over Helium any day of the week and here's why: Associated Contents usually takes 3 days to 10 days before they get back to you with an upfront offer on an article. Sure, I have been upset sometimes at the offers. This is because I may spend 15 minutes writing an article and get $4.50 for it plus ppv's but when I really research or take more time on one, I seem to get less. I am a newbie there and haven't totally figured the system out but when I do, I feel that I will do better. I have already reached a clout 5 in about 3 months but that only writing 40 articles. Helium is depressing to me. I can go on there one day and I have like 85% - roughly 3 stars (because of how many articles I have written for them) and then two days later I go back and boom! I'm down to 70%. Up and down, up and down. I like that others get to rate your articles, but it can make you not want to write sometimes. AC also lets you rate and I've gotten 4.0 or above on all of my articles, which makes me feel a lot better about myself. AC also pays you for each and every article as soon as you accept their offer. Once I accept their offer it's less than 24 hours before the money appears in Paypal. Helium, on the other hand, pays once a month and it takes so long to get to $25.00 (the payout limit) that I get frustrated. When the sent me an email stating that they were going to be making the upfront payments I was really excited. 50 cents to 2.50 depending on your stars. That was okay with me. I would try to make sure I had the stars and it gave me a reason (other than the pride thing which was taking a bashing by the up and down thing) to write articles for them. However, when I started looking, I saw a catch. A big one, in my opinion. AC will pay upfront for any well written topic except for poetry, memoirs or opinions, and fiction pieces. So I expected the same from Helium. That was fine. However, as I read more and more, they don't pay for half of the topics on their own list! And when I wrote a medical article (which was one of the things they did pay for), when it showed up on my helium list of articles it was put under "medical-other". They tagged the other on there as a reason not to have to pay me for the article since other is one of the categories they don't pay for. I also like to write in the debates. Guess what? You don't get paid for those articles either! I thought this was something Helium was doing so that it could compete with AC but they don't even come close to competing with them. Too many ways to get out of paying you for the article whether it's 50 cents or not. I can write the same article over at AC and get $5.00 or $6.00 for it. Another thing I like about AC over Helium is the fact that when something like this happens and you have a question, you can easily get a response from one of the higher ups. Not at helium. I wrote and requested why my article was categorized as that when it clearly showed Medical only when I was writing it and have never heard anything from them. They clearly don't have an answer. However, if AC gives me a low - or what I consider to be low - offer on any of my articles, they write out exactly what the reasons are for the low offer. This has helped me to know what I am doing wrong. If I have any questions about payment, they answer me within 24 to 48 hours. I am staying with Helium long enough to get up to $25.00 so I can get my payout and if they don't shape up, I will not stay there.

Hi there, I've been on Helium since september of 2008. I haven't reached a payout yet but I'm confident I will. I just need to find the time to write more. I've gotten encouraging letters and seen my articles on different search engines. I'm just proud of that fact alone. As far as the rating system. C'mon guys...give a little, get a little. We are all here for the same reasons. Take 10 mins a day and rate maybe 5-6 articles. You'll keep at least one star like this. The articles are short. People are rating your work so it's only fair right? At least they've created an incentive plan now with more payment opportunities. I do have one question. For instance, do you have to "maintain" the stars for the entire month or just have them ready by due date? Know what I mean? Another groovy thing they've done, is a dollar for each empty title you write in qualified channels. I think that's cool! Best of luck to you. Hope this helps.

The rating thing sucks. It's like being told you have to read all the books of a publishing company before they will publish your book. Unfair and underhanded in my opinion.

i haven't heard anything about this. so i can't tell you what think sorry i couldn't help.

Thanks brian! I've wondered about that for awhile now. Are you an active member on Helium? I'd like to read some of your articles just out of curiousity. I don't have but 15 written since Sep...but like I said...I work all the time. What I do turn in ranks pretty good, except some of the legal articles.