We’re hiring, baby: Contributors wanted

We are indeed hiring. In the wake of the newly annointed Ambassador Ricky Cadden’s departure at SMS Text News (we wish him well at S60), it’s time for us to hire.

I’m looking for some contributors to help me manage and deliver SMS Text News.

The big problem I’ve got is that you are all reading hourly. It’s a total utter bind. 20 odd percent of you hit the site hourly.

I was sat with Ed Hodges this afternoon — I was fine for about 30 minutes waxing lyrical about his ROK Talk product, before I started coming out in virtual spots, worrying about the fact I hadn’t personally published anything for about 11 hours. I don’t like it when there’s not been something published on the site recently.

‘Recently’, for me, means ‘within the last hour or so’ but its a dynamic term. I don’t want to flood the RSS readers of everyone, but at the same time, a majority of readers use SMS Text News as the ‘flick-back’ — it’s the place they visit after doing a bit of work, or a conference call, or a meeting or something, to check out what’s ‘going on’.

And there ain’t much going on when I’m meeting people or sleeping. Not good.

Julia and Krystal are doing a wicked job helping. Need more though.

So I’m looking for contributors with the following attributes:

– The ability to write comprehensively in English. It’s conversational English that we employ here at SMS Text News, but with a nod to the standard grammatical constructs and conventions.
– A passing awareness of the mobile industry. This isn’t a deal breaker, particularly as I do like to hear from ‘normobs’ (“normal mobile users”).
– Time to contribute regularly — I’m really looking for people to help with 4-5 articles per day.
– Ability to turn a press release into an interesting story. Not after cut and paste churning. Take a look at the press release, talk to the PR if necessary, craft a story with the salient facts, take a nice screenshot, put in a link and a bit of conversation. Publish.
– Ability to think outside the box and create original content, particularly on quieter days.

I’m also looking for regular columnists (500 words a week, generally). I thoroughly enjoy the regular contributions from the likes of James Whatley and Ben Smith — and I’d like more. So if you’re up for it, email Krystal. Not me. Krystal, as site operations manager, is far more organised and far more responsive, ready to hear from you. Knock her over an email — krystal@smstextnews.com and have a chat with her.

If you’re keen, create a blog post that you reckon should be featured on SMS Text News. That’ll give us an idea of your capabilities and, if we’re feeling it, we’ll publish it and talk to you about cash. If you’re potentially conflicted because of your employer or you can’t accept cash, no biggie, we can work something out.

I don’t mind where you’re based or what your situation is. We don’t discriminate, unless you’re a Motorola RAZR user, in which case, there’s the door…