As a sign that freelance writers are playing an increasingly prominent role in the world of journalism?both in the West and in the developing world?the US-based International Women?s Media Foundation has decided to give its top award to a Tanzanian freelancer, who courageously reported on the murder of albino infants in her home country. Vicky Ntetema took it upon herself to expose the disturbing practice common among some Tanzanian witchdoctors to murder albinos, in order to then use their body parts in allegedly ?magic? potions. As a freelancer, Ntetema did not have the full backing of a major media organization, but she still took a significant risk by infiltrating the world of witchdoctors and posing as a potential client for these potions.</p> <p>Ntetema uncovered that witchdoctors often operated with the tacit protection of police officers and even local government, neither of which did anything to stop the violence linked to their work. That having been said, Tanzania did arrest 170 witchdoctors in recent years, but the award-winning freelance writer worries that upcoming elections will convince politicians to turn the other away, even as the killings continue.</p> <p>The network of witchdoctors in Tanzania is so powerful, that Ntetema has reason to fear for her life, after she used her freelance career to uncover their work. She now has 24 hour protection from a security company and was even cautioned to flee the country on two separate occasions. Even worse, Ntetema must wear a hijab?a complete veil over her face?whenever she goes out in public as a protective measure.

One of Britain?s most prominent union bosses is learning a hard lesson in Twitter etiquette, after his decision to tweet the details of his negotiations and bargaining with British Airways landed him in hot water. Derek Simpson decided that sending live tweets while negotiations were on-going was an appropriate use of Twitter as British Airways cabin crew prepared for yet another strike. While many airline workers walked off the job this morning, disrupting the travel plans of passengers at Heathrow Airport, Simpson?s Twitter faux pas has reportedly led to divisions within Unite?s leadership. Tony Woodley, another Unite chief, distanced himself from Simpson?s actions, which made any deal with BA impossible.</p> <p>But the consequences of Simpson?s boardroom tweeting went further, when rowdy activists from the Socialist Workers Party decided to use the location information posted on Twitter to crash and disrupt the meeting. Woodley noted that what occurred as a result of the tweets was ?catastrophic? and suggested that Simpson exercised poor judgement in tweeting about a live meeting. British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh was quick to step in as well, in order to condemn what occurred, and noted that he was ?shocked and angry.? Walsh told journalists that he saw that Simpson had his blackberry placed on the table during the meeting and also observed as he used it during the talks. But all along Walsh simply assumed that he was using his device to answer e-mails or send text messages.</p>

Perez Hilton, a prominent entertainment blogger based in the United States, has been offered $20 million for his website, according to a report in The Guardian. Avid Life Media decided to make an offer to Hilton, in order to buy a blog which Forbes Magazine rated as the Internet?s biggest ?star.? If Hilton accepts the deal, he would be given $18 million upon handing over ownership of his blog, and then an extra $2 million a year after the transfer. The star blogger has yet to decide what to do and whether the allure of riches is enough to convince him to leave the blogosphere. The offer is currently in the hands of Hilton?s attorney and the potential buyers await a response in the coming days.</p> <p>This is not the first time that Avid Life Media offers tens of millions to purchase a popular blog or website. For instance, the company purchased HotorNot.com for $20 million in 2008. What this shows is that prominent and popular blogs can have a very real financial value attached to them. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira, certainly fits the bill and he has managed to attract the attention of the printed press by outing a series of celebrities who had previously kept their homosexuality a secret. Hilton himself is openly gay and he believed that disclosing the personal information of celebrities was an important part of an entertainment blogger?s mandate.</p> <p>Hilton certainly managed to garner attention and his blog is now among the top 500 most visited websites in the world.

Seach Engine Optimized (SEO) content writing is a very different field that regular journalism, in that freelancers must strive not only to produce a piece that is rich in content and substance, but one that will be featured prominently</p>

Twitter is going primetime after CBS decided to launch a brand new sitcom which focuses on the social media tool and the prominence of tweets, as well as digital communication among American youth. The show will enter the production phase in the coming months and it has been entitled ?Bleep My Dad Says.? The Twitter-inspired sitcom has also managed to attract a major Hollywood star. William Shatner, most famously of Star Trek, will reportedly play a lead role in the show. CBS will make an official announcement about the sitcom?s launch later this week. Despite the high tech, twenty-first century nature of ?Bleep My Dad Says,? the show will be filmed in the traditional manner that viewers have come to expect from sitcoms.</p> <p>The new CBS show is based on tweets posted by 29 year old Justin Halpern, who often added lines from his 74 year old father, Sam Halpern, a retired physician. Justin?s page managed to attract 1.3 million subscribers, thanks to the dry, witty, sarcastic and occasionally rude comments attributed to Sam Halpern. Shatner will play the role of the old, crusty doctor.</p> <p>Halpern?s Twitter feed has even been turned into a book, and the sitcom will be based largely on this. Justin Halpern never realized that merely posting tweets would inspire not only a book, but also a sitcom on one of America?s flagship television networks.</p>

Twenty seven year old Shane Bauer knows all too well that dictatorial regimes make no distinction between freelance writers and traditional journalists employed by major news organizations when it comes imprisoning them on trumped up charges. Bauer is an American freelancer who was covering Kurdish regional elections in Iraq and who also happened to cross the border into Iran with his girlfriend in order to go on a hiking trip. Sarah Shourd, Bauer?s girlfriend, worked as an English teacher in Damascus, Syria, while her partner focused his freelance writing career on covering politics in the Middle East. But Iranian authorities believed that Shourd, Bauer and their friend Josh Fatal were doing more than simply hiking, or working as freelance journalists; the three were charged with spying and have been held in an Iranian prison for over 285 days.</p> <p>Supporters of the freelance writer had hoped that the Iranian government would release the three Berkley graduates after US authorities confirmed that their visit to Iran was entirely innocuous. Yet the most that Iran was willing to do was allow their mothers to see them in prison. After an arduous application process, the three mothers were granted visas to enter Iran earlier this week, but there is no information on whether authorities may be willing to release the captive American citizens.</p> <p>A growing number of organizations are turning to freelance writers to cover major international stories, including the very prickly issue of politics in the Middle East. One of the advantages of hiring a freelancer is that they are often more likely to have experience with Web 2.0 technology, including blogging and social media, and usually have a blog of their own. As such, they can open up a world of digital opportunities not not always apparent to someone who has a lifetime of experience in the more staid, and comfortable world of traditional print or broadcast journalism.

A recent survey conducted by Accenture found that 60% of consumers were unimpressed by efforts that tech companies and manufacturers of electronic products took to improve their customer service, but a market specialists point out that a relatively easy way to satisfy clients is to turn to Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media. The Accenture survey included the participation of 2,500 consumers and company executives across 15 countries and one of the most important findings is that commercial consumers are far more satisfied with the products and services offered by tech companies than residential clients.</p> <p>While 84% of enterprises interviewed expressed satisfaction with the communication offered by their technology service providers, only 40% of residential client felt equally enamoured. Accenture?s senior executive, Joe Hughes, noted that connecting with clients through Twitter and Facebook are inexpensive and easy ways to improve the image that clients have of a firm?s willingness and ability to communicate with them. The use of these social media tools should be coupled with customer service agents and tech professionals who are available on flexible schedules to answer the questions and concerns of clients in a timely manner and also to respond to comments or concerns.</p> <p>Hughes noted that the use of social media in the corporate world is the ?last mile? in customer service and due to the public nature of Twitter and Facebook, companies must be certain that their representatives portray the best image of the firm. But the effort taken to integrate social media into a company?s customer service may pay off. Fully 81% of all residential clients interviewed noted that they were much more likely to remain loyal clients of a given service provider if they felt that the firm was making a clear effort to improve the channels of communication.

Teaching English abroad is a popular job among recent college graduates seeking both work experience and a little international adventure on the side. But Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) specialists are encouraging these young teachers to go an extra step and create a blog about their experiences abroad. When TEFL teachers blog they are not only keeping touch with family and friend by sharing their expat stories, but are also developing professionally and are getting their name out at a time when they must market themselves in order to obtain a full-time career. Blogs created through WordPress and Blogger are normally picked up and indexed by Google and other search engines faster than most regular websites and Google even has a separate search tool which allows for users to filter sites and only browse for blogs.</p> <p>Blogging has now become a recognized way of both launching and developing careers. In times of economic hardship and high unemployment, the number of candidates for most full-time, permanent positions tends to be very high. Simply submitting a CV may not be enough to stand out from the crowd. But a TEFL or ESL instructor abroad can provide insight into his/her teaching philosophy, how to deal with challenges in the classroom, how to overcome cultural differences when working in an international or diverse environment and, of course, how to navigate the difficulties of living in a foreign country. But there is also another positive aspect of blogging: experienced TEFL instructors use it as a way to relax, by getting frustrations off their chest, particularly when they may have no other outlet to do when residing abroad.

Content writing is no longer only in demand among western companies, but a growing number institutions and firms in China have come to realize the important of using fresh content on their website in order to attract clients. The number of full-time content writers working for Chinese websites, blogs, content creation companies and other institutions has now reached one million, according to a report in the China Daily. Most of these writers earn relatively modest salaries by western standards (an average of $14,600 per year), but the rapid growth in the number of people in China who find full-time work as online freelance writers shows the growing importance on internet-based media, even in non-western societies.</p> <p>One of the characteristics that almost all content writers in China share is that they tend to write an average of 10,000 Chinese characters each day, in order to secure a comfortable full-time income. The average content writer will spend approximately 6 hours a day on their craft.</p> <p>While most freelancers in the United Kingdom, the United States and continental Europe work on non-fiction, blogs, current events and industry-specific news, online novel writing seems to be especially popular among China?s content writers. Literary websites have sprung up throughout China and readers can pay a flat fee to download electronic novels. Content writers working for these sites are then paid for each novel that they produce. When journalists asked content writers in China what the advantages were in their line of work, many noted that the flexibility and the ability to work from home, while caring for their children, is what they liked the most.

According to a recent survey by Burson-Marsteller, 15% of Fortune 500 companies have now decided to launch blogs as a way to draw even more attention to their businesses and keep in touch with their clients. The number of small to medium-sized companies that use blogs for these purposes is even higher and 89% of them see this as an effective way to keep channels of communication open with their clientele. But launching a blog is a commitment and requires companies to post targeted articles at regular intervals if they are to keep the fleeting attention of busy clients. This is why a growing number of firms have realized that content creation companies and their staff of content writers can play a major role in developing a popular blog that is ultimately accepted by Google News and increases traffic to the firm?s main business website.</p> <p>The key to a successful blog is to define a relatively narrow subject with a set of keywords that will characterize the type of articles that appear on the site. This does not mean that content writers will produce articles exclusively on these subjects and will never write about anything else, but each blog needs a clear focus and readers must know that the blogger is an expert in a given field. A corporate blog should never attempt to be CNN or the BBC, but rather a trusted resource in targeted markets.</p> <p>Most importantly, content writers are aware of the fact that a business blog does not only provide clients with information and news, but in the process directs them to the products and services offered by the given company and shows how these relate to the subjects covered in blog posts.