Last week, we were inspired by a debate that kicked off at Journalism.co.uk’s news:rewired event; a one-day session that encouraged people to share their ideas and predictions about the future of news creation.

Jessica Reed from the Guardian’s Comment Is Free collective asked what the motivation was to produce content without getting paid for it. As a large part of Reputation Online is user-generated, we were interested in what the opinion of our community would be.

The results of the poll itself were less than surprising. Just over 50% of those voting said that it was a combination of passion, glory and promotion. And as Danny Whatmough from Wildfire PR pointed out, it’s a feeling that changes from person to person. The next highest answers saw just over a third of people choose personal profile, and promotion of a service or product as equal motivations, which is in contrast to the feelings of the journalist-heavy crowd at news:rewired. Possibly by the very nature of those reading this site however, promotion is more front-of-mind.

An interesting conversaton played out in the comments of our poll, with Sian Meades, founder of the Domestic Sluts blog, saying that people often write in the hope that one day they’ll get paid for it. “That’s how I started when I was first blogging three years ago. Sure, I always stuck to what I was passionate about (otherwise there really would have been no point), but it was always with the hope of leading to paid work in the area I wanted to work in. It paid off (excuse the pun). I know that sounds much more shallow than saying “I write because I love it”, but it’s still a reason to consider. Whether or not you should have to work for free to get where you want is another matter…”

Stuart Witts, a freelance  digital consultant, responded to this by saying that he thought; “the greatest sadness that comes from this debate is that people find it so hard to believe a person would spend their time sharing information and engaging with fellow human beings without having a monetary motive.”

Meades again replied, saying  that that wasn’t quite what she was getting at. “I don’t think money is the only ‘motive’ (you make it sound like earning money from writing is a bad thing, I don’t think it is), but it is one. Sharing information is great, and the internet is a great platform for doing that. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make money from it. It’s no bad thing. If you can spend the day doing what you love, and pay the bills at the same time, then isn’t that a positive thing?”

There is no definite answer to this debate; it really does depend on each individual’s circumstance, job role, relationship with their blog and more. Rupert Howe, a mobile videoblogger and interactive filmmaker capped the issue off nicely, raising the social aspects of this kind of content-production. “Producing content for a fee, you’re answering to the person paying you. You’re fitting their requirements and hoping that you’ll do it well enough to get another gig. Producing content for free, you can enjoy indulging your interests and style. And there’s usually a social element too – you meet people you otherwise wouldn’t.”