The "exclusivity clause" is fairly standard.

In other words, once we've bought it, we don't want it appearing anywhere else, until we publish it.

You can negotiate what the rights are AFTER publication, but they will either not give up "First Pub" rights or want to cut the fee to reprint levels.

I've been a writer and editor with a prominent online media company for four years now. Our contracts include two provisions regarding republication:

1. There's a period of exclusivity after publication of 60 or 90 days (I think it's changed and I don't remember where it's at now. A writer hasn't asked in a while.)

2. Authors are welcome to republish the article on their personal web site at any time, which is what I think you were asking when you said "can I republish it myself." No reason why not. Barring a rare case where the author's vanity site happens to be both directly competitive and more prominent, what's the harm?

Most people seem to realize that the shelf-life of this sort of information is pretty limited. I've had writers act like whittling the repub interval down to 30 days is a major victory for their negotiating skills when the simple fact is that this stuff moves off the front page and into the archives in a matter of days or a few weeks where it sits, soaking up the residual benefit of good Google juice but not much more. If they can convince someone else to purchase an article we've already run, more power to 'em.

I've worked in the Linux journalism trade for four years now, and though I've never written for LJ, I've dealt with several of their folks on a few occasions. They seem like good eggs and I'd guess they're similarly flexible. As a prominent site in their space with a lot of mindshare and probable first-stop status, they certainly should be.

My two rules, though, are 1. always ask and 2. always have a contract. Just good business sense, and it protects editor and writer alike.

-mph (http://www.puddingbowl.org)

That exclusivity thing is normal, but you can always reuse some bits you used in submitted articles afterwards. No problems. Many academics do so, and publish "working paper" versions of the papers they submitted to journals so as to get around the exclusivity thing and reach a wider audience through the Internet.

Oo Neato!
Maybe put a request out for the names of all the sites that are using memcache so the "who's using this" page can be updated?
Though I doubt anyone can beat LJ/Slashdot in terms of size/traffic.