[cynwoody]

The most cursory examination of mainstreet.com makes it clear it's not a blog. It's not blogspot.com or wordpress.com or livejournal or anything of a similar nature. It has an editor, Ross Kenneth Urken. It's clearly trying to make money by posting interesting content focused on personal finance and scoring ad impressions.

The site is a subsidiary of TheStreet.com, described by them as

MainStreet provides personal finance tips and advice to help consumers grow their wealth and enhance their lives. By combining lifestyle news, commentary and financial resources, MainStreet is an engaging and fun site "where life and money intersect."

Of course, TheStreet has been around since the early days of the web.

Mainstreet has a large number of contributors — way more than a group blog such as Power Line or Legal Insurrection — as you can readily see with a simple google. How they are compensated and whether their compensation depends on the number of hits their articles get, I do not know. I highly doubt they are anything like full-time employees. I suspect they are freelancers who get spare change in the Paypal accounts.

[shibumi]

"How they are compensated and whether their compensation depends on the number of hits their articles get, I do not know. I highly doubt they are anything like full-time employees. I suspect they are freelancers who get spare change in the Paypal accounts."

Go back to WilliamTell2's posting history. He has repeatedly made a point of justifying his excerpts as a way of getting paid for his "writing."

In fact, his writing has to be excerpted to make ay money since anyone actually reading one of his articles in full would certainly not make that same mistake twice.