Writer’s Residence is a web service which thinks journalism students are stupid.

“Student journalists worldwide can register for a free, one-year membership to an online writing portfolio Web site that they can use to show off their writing and demonstrate their web savvy to potential employers.”

After that? “Membership costs only $8.29 US Dollars per month.”

Have these people heard of WordPress? Blogger.com? LiveJournal? Even Typepad is cheaper than that.

Their target market – at least if they attend lectures, if they read the trade press, if they speak to their friends – have certainly heard of those.

They’re far from the only ones not to have done their market research: in a similar vein, every month I get approached by yet another citizen journalism outfit which sees students as a source of free content, and therefore money.

“Get your work seen by thousands of people!” they chant. “They already can,” I reply. “And they already do. Their websites got 50,000 hits last month. How many did yours get?”

Gah.