Zoomdoggle hires personal assistant from India to blog for him

Jake Bronstein (left) of Zoomdoggle says:

I've been outsourcing some of my blogging to India using a "virtual personal assistant service" called Tasks For Today.
I've got him hired for 80 hours. He does 4 hours per day for me. But that means by day one he'd written a whole month of Zoomdoggle.

Outsourcing The Doggle (Zoomdoggle)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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acb

Zoomdoggle, with its emphasis on lowbrow humour and puerile pranks, looks like one of the few blogs that could get away with that sort of thing. If they taught monkeys to type and edit HTML, they could probably put a few to work writing for it.
Talia

I just don’t get it. Especially since, with no offense to Yogesh intended, his English is good, but not perfect.

:/
Jeff

It’s all about “branding” the name. For instance, I came here for Doctorow’s words, but I like other stuff as well. But if I found out Doctorow wasn’t writing his own stuff I’d feel lied to.
Lucifer

I wonder if Anne Frank’s diary would have been better if she had outsourced it to a middle aged indian man.
Halloween Jack

I’m thinking that I could outsource something called “Zoomdoggle” to, not to be coy or anything, my anus.
coldspell

In 2004, the Times of India wrote an article [1] quoting a Slashdot troll as truth:

Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: “About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He’s happy to have the work. I’m happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I’m telecommuting. Now I’m considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”

[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/769493.cms
w000t

This is essentially the same idea as “Outsourcing,” the second episode of Click & Clack’s As the Wrench Turns, which is unfortunately pretty bad. Not that it was a very original idea when they did it, but Zoomdoggle’s idea is similar enough that it came to mind immediately.
Antinous

Stubar,

I called dibs in a previous thread. Back off.
Julian Bond

The Execution Channel, anyone?
ablestmage

Apparently he’s writing for BoingBoing also — two posts in a row snarfed from Zoomdoggle ^_^
Perla

Zack also outsourced his hotness. Yogesh is hot and certainly not middle-aged!
Anonymous

A.J. Jacobs (the Year of Living Bibically guy) outsourced his life – his research and writing, his errands, fights with his wife – in 2005.
dainel

Outsourcing to India does not necessarily mean lower quality. The are hundreds of thousands of Indians who write better than any of us, in perfect written English. Well, … better than any of you. I’m not a native English speaker.

Countless blogs will actually improve, if outsourced to them. Unfortunately, there are also millions of somewhat less skilled Indians in the outsourcing business. As in any hiring situation, the trick is in finding and retaining the right person.

What is needed is an outsourcing company that will honestly rate the people they have. You pay more for a grade-1 person, less for grade-5. The Tasks Everyday company Jake uses does not do this. They only charge extra for people with technical degrees, but that is all.

It’s like hiring an employee, entirely on their paper qualification alone, without an interview, or even a resume. And then having their salaries locked permanently into that paper qualification, without allowing for anything else – their performance over time, people skills, efficiency, initiative, etc.
- Antinous
  
  The are hundreds of thousands of Indians who write better than any of us, in perfect written English.
  
  Educated Indians are a lot more educated than educated Americans. One of the families that I visited had a sixth grader who was way ahead of most American college students. And I don’t mean in drinking and posting faceplants on YouTube.
dhl

Last month with their permission, zefrank took over someone’s Facebook account for a week and pretended to be them. An interesting experiment in online identity. Here’s a description and a write up of the experience:

http://www.zefrank.com/zesblog/archives/2008/07/what_i_did_last.html
Anonymous

Yogesh is not “hot” or “kind of hot”. He is classically handsome. He has a beautiful skull and facial bone structure and on top of them gorgeous eyes, ears, nose, mouth, chin, and cheeks. His hair is luxurious and his 5 o’clock shadow is sexy. He is one gorgeous hunk of man.
morlem

When I saw the picture I was convinced this article was about a Jeff Goldblum lookalike contest.
1222256

I don’t think it is a good idea to promote outsourcing things to India.
Falcon_Seven

Jake, the sound you are hearing is your credibility swirling down the bowel. Enjoy.
stubar

@FALCON SEVEN: I’m pretty sure he lost his credibility when he was on Road Rules. Or when he started writing for Maxim. Or when helped found FHM. I could go on like this for hours.

He is, however, kind of hot.
willarnet

I’ve used several firms over the past year and a half. I liked some, didn’t like others. I’m using an individual now and it’s great. What really helped was a program I found at http://www.cloningyourself.com

It was really helpful, not just with finding and using virtual help, but with my delegating. Some of my assistants weren’t great, but sometimes it was me.

I’d love to see a more current post if there is one. What’s the update. Is it still going well?

I don’t use my assistant for blogging, but I do use them for Twitter.
Antinous

Isn’t that the idea dispensing machine guy?