• Ad Age, et al, Thursday, April 29, 2010 11:28 PM

More major media companies are looking for ways to find cheap content. Thomson Reuters, Cox Newspapers and Hachette Filipacchi have run articles supplied by Associated Content, one of several companies, such as Demand Media and AOL's SEED, that mines reporting from masses of freelancers for as little as $5 a story, notes Ad Age.

Associated Content boasts more than 350,000 freelance contributors who have supplied, at current count, more than 2 million articles. Associated pays its contributors anywhere from $5 to $30 per article. Or, it can pay a fee of up to $2 for every 1,000 impressions the story generates within Associated Content's site.

Earlier this month, USA Today cut a similar deal with Demand Media. USA Today 's site has started running thousands of pieces of original travel editorial from the Demand Media content farm, making the Gannett newspaper the latest traditional news publisher to incorporate editorial from an outside supplier.

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