CEO and Founder of Odyssey Online did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on social media site, Reddit. An AMA is basically an open forum for the general public to ask someone a question about anything and everything. The person can then decide what questions they would like to answer. Evan Burns has received a kind of bad reputation in the past because of his new ideas. Society states that Odyssey is "a site that allows millennials to rant," or "articles that lack depth." Here's what I examined from this Reddit Forum:
A lot of people are always asking about the future of Odyssey. Reddit users were basically telling Burns that because he isn't paying for articles to be spammed all over the internet and not paying his creators, that he ultimately won't succeed compared to other sites such as Buzzfeed or Facebook. Burns responded with the fact that we aren't focusing on the money aspect. As an Editor-in-Chief, for my college campus, I've had writers quit because they don't feel as though their articles are getting the attention(i.e. paid) for the "quality" content they write. So, I said, "See ya! Let me know when you're getting paid thousands of dollars for your articles!" I still have yet to hear from those individuals. However, I don't believe I can put a price tag on my articles. I'm not in it for the paycheck. I'm in this to be able to make my thoughts and opinions out there in the world and to see who else agrees with me, which is what Odyssey helps promise to their writers.
In his light of his criticism, he stated a lot of Odyssey's Short Term goals. Some of these goals were based more on users. He, however, was able to combat his critiques with hopeful answers of, "we're working on it." Will we see these goals become more prevalent? Maybe. One user stated how the website is very buggy. I have noticed that as well. After almost a year I have seen little to no improvement.
So Evan, here are my thoughts on this whole thing. I feel as though your arguments were very minimal ideas, but you lacked to expand on those ideas, which I feel happens very much in this company. You got grilled by one of your own writers very harshly. But, you lacked to answer their questions fully. I don't know if you were pressed for time or just didn't feel comfortable. Not that I liked seeing you be grilled, ridiculed, or embarrassed, however, a lot of those questions would help demolish the mystery behind the company.
People are constantly asking me, "You put all this time and effort into this community, yet you get no compensation? How do you deal with that?" I feel if you stated something along the lines of "it's for personal gain" or "we're helping millennials get their name out there" might appeal to more people rather than, "You don't have to be here if you don't want to." It's time to let the college business ideals go. Let's focus on expanding and getting our name out there. I think more Q&As would be beneficial to this company, but where you actually answer the questions fully.
Much love and major credit, Mr. CEO.
