Yahoo bought Associated Content, known for churning out search-driven posts with an army of freelancers. The internet company is just the latest trying a hybrid cheap/pricey, highbrow/lowbrow approach to online journalism.

Set aside for a moment the debate over whether Aol is a freelancer sweatshop. The real problem at the internet company is naive editors. Or at least, that's what the guy in charge of Aol says.

AOL hired an army of underemployed music lovers to interview bands at South by Southwest. But the citizen journalists, paid $50 per story, are missing their deadlines, so AOL sent a panicked mass email (below).

The chief of AOL's Seed is trying to get his former New York Times colleagues to join his computer-statistics-driven freelancer army. In the email below, Timesmen are urged to defect and "reinvent the field" of journalism, since "jobs are scarce."

With great power comes great responsibility. But AOL's media borg Seed.com can't stop its horde of desperate underemployed journalists from mobbing story subjects, like the angry woman who heard from seven Seed writers in six days. Frightening.

AOL is interested in buying the world's largest tech blog, Mashable, we hear from a source at the internet conglomerate. And in fact the two sides have been talking, people outside AOL have whispered to one another, and to us.

Seed, the AOL Media Borg that will destroy journalism, is still alive, despite our best efforts. Today we launch another missile of creativity at its hull. It asks what to do with mismatched plates, and we respond with a poem.

We are trying to take down Seed, the AOL Media Borg created to destroy media. Our weapon of choice: poetry. Today the robot brain asks about "Identity Info Sharing" and the great muse of verse responds.

We are trying to bring down Seed, the AOL News Borg created to destroy editorial on the internet, one poem at a time. Today the machine asks, "What Does It Mean to Square Something?" We try to answer.

Seed, the AOL News Borg that generates story ideas based on the things that people are looking for on search engines, is up and running. We've had a look at their assignments and there is only one appropriate response: poetry.

As we dipped into this month's Seed, the magazine that tries even harder than your 9th grade Bio teacher to make science seem "hip," we were immediately riveted by E in C Adam Bly's editor's letter. As Bly casually mentions a handful of the boldfaced sci-lebrities who've graced his table, he explains the enduring…