Update: Seems like those numbers aren’t so funny after all.  Thanks Charles for clearing things up as the paycheques were for the first three months, not just for the month of March, so the dollar amounts make more sense. 

Talking Biz News recounts how Business2.0 has finally doled out cheques to its writers who are now blogging. I’ve written about it before — and it seems like part of their rationale for this is that they’re a little fearful of some of their roster going all Om Malik over the blogosphere.

If anything, I find this logic is a bit backward.

After all, by encouraging (some would say at metaphorical gunpoint) these writers to blogging, some might find a passion that they wouldn’t have already discovered, build up their following through Business2.0’s own user base, and then leave.

Unless they’ve all signed contracts that says they can’t start blogs on their own that are in direct competition to Business2.0’s. Which sounds odd. “You should really start a blog here at Business2.0 — we’ll pay you and stuff, but if you get successful, don’t think about starting a competing blog.”

Anyway, one thing that struck me was the numbers that they’ve listed.

Apparently the bloggers are getting paid $2.50 per 1000 page views. But all of the blogs got 1.3 million page views for the month of March, that would mean their total payout would be just over $3000 total.

However, some bloggers have received cheques in the “thousands”, with others in the hundreds, and others little more than a pat on the back (I’m joking, of course. They also got a suggestion about changing the topic of their blog).

What are the real numbers here? Either the real page view totals are MUCH higher (which I doubt), or that these bloggers are getting paid much better than $2.50 per thousand page views.

Far be it for me to stir things up, but I think its really the latter. After all, if you’re going to “encourage” your writers to start blogging, but on the other hand, perhaps (and this is total speculation) disallow them from leaving and competing, you’d better be paying them top dollar for their efforts.