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Well, as long as you are out there in cyberland blogging or talking about the news, or voicing your opinion on issues, you may as well check out Newsvine.

Newsvine is based in Seattle, and although it is run by an independent staff headed by Calvin Tang, it is owned by MSNBC. They bought it last October.

You can seed articles from other sources, write your own original articles, and upload photos and illustrations to your articles that auto-appear on the right side of the page. (stay below 500 pixels in width. Length is up to you.) You don't even need an image host. You can upload them straight from your computer, and even add captions. All content is reversible, controllable, and there are some good options for your profile page.

BTW, Newsvine is NOT Digg. Newsvine operates under a strict Code of Honor, and they do enforce it. You can promote yourself to death on your profile page, but you CANNOT seed articles to Newsvine from your own blog. Try not to make the mistake some do there, which is to post up deliberately flaming articles with flaming titles in order to get some cheap hits and votes. This is not where success at Newsvine is, that is, views by NV members. It is quality articles and seeds that generate attention from outside Newsvine. Trust me on this one.

I joined up with Newsvine in March 2006, establishing a column there called 'Straight Talk'. Since then, I've published almost 140 original articles. Many have been picked up by AOL (who cares) and Yahoo (good), or by European sites. I go over the place on subject matter, covering things as varied as the 'Mars Statue' to 'Whatever Happened to the Archies?' Keeping people guessing what's coming next works very well.

Newsvine pays a modest amount to you each month, depending on how many people stop by or how much your stuff gets linked to. It's not a scam. The money reaches you by PayPal once a month like clockwork, and is paid by MSNBC Interactive in Seattle. Of course, no one really does it for the money at Newsvine, but 'Straight Talk' usually puts $50-$150 a month into my PayPal account. Nice, but don't expect to get rich.

I always tell people that if they want to have success at Newsvine, they must not pigeonhole themselves, i.e. become a Bush-basher or an Iraq-war-hater with every article. Move around on the subjects, write well, keep people guessing. You can see my column, which I think is a pretty decent example of what works at Newsvine by going to The Straight Talk Column

Newsvine pays a modest amount to you each month, depending on how many people stop by or how much your stuff gets linked to. It's not a scam. The money reaches you by PayPal once a month like clockwork, and is paid by MSNBC Interactive in Seattle. Of course, no one really does it for the money at Newsvine, but 'Straight Talk' usually puts $50-$150 a month into my PayPal account. Nice, but don't expect to get rich.

It seems that this payment model for writing is gaining a lot of traction. It's valuable to hear from someone who has direct experience with a payment model like this. Webloggers, stay tuned for more info about similar opportunities.

Karen