Beware of Business and Marketing Based Article-Social Networking Websites

Sometimes it seems no one in the younger generation seems to know how to work anymore, instead they all try to come up with the latest Internet Social Networking Scheme. Indeed, they really do not ever create anything new, just slight variations along similar themes. For instance, the other day someone emails me and wants me to provide them with 100s of Business and Marketing articles. And as the most prolific online article writer in human history, that should not be too difficult for me right?

Well, sure, I could do it, but why would I provide fresh quality content to a brand new website that is unproven, not even listed in the search engines yet and do all that for free? I.e. What's in it for me? So, I asked the gentleman and here is what he responded, probably another form email that he sends to everyone. Typical non-personal gibberish:

Hi Lance,

Let me explain a little about Our New Website to give you a better understand of the site.

Our New Website (launching in two weeks) is set up as a portal for professionals in 3 areas, which are Marketing & Sales, Accounting & Finance, and Small Business Owners & Startups. Professionals in these areas can come to Schlitzel and read daily articles, read blogs, participate in discussions, find out about the latest jobs, and participate in groups. Each profession is separated so that users view only one profession at a time to ensure each member sees the content that is most important to them. Basically, it is a one stop shop for professionals to get everything they need in their profession.

The articles section is a major area on the site. Each weekday we feature one article for each profession. The article should be based on any marketing profession topic. The author is also given a section to write about their background and their name is hyperlinked to the user profile on the site.

We encourage viewers to leave comments on the article and engage in a discussion. The goal of the article is to provide profession related content to our users. In return, we want our authors to be seen as industry experts leading to increased exposure for the author. You can see an example article that I posted at [URL was here]. The site usually requires a password so you will see a banner at the top asking for you to sign in. This banner will not be shown if you are logged in.

The only thing we ask from the authors is:

1. the article is related to the profession and provides value to the user
2. no blatant advertising in the article such as discount offers, text links, etc.
3. the article needs to be original content written by the author. It can be a rephrased article from a previous post, but it can not [sic] be a duplicate repost as this will hurt our page-rank from Google.

Please let me know if you have any questions. We are looking for our first contributors now. Would you like to contribute?
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So, what is a polite way to say "Heck No!" Let's see now, would I like to contribute content for free to help this guy build his website and make money. Mind you, it's a brand new site, no traffic and virtually not recognized at all by anyone. Would you want to build someone else's website instead of your own? What's in it for you? In this case Nothing - think about it.