I have searched most of the AC-related forums, etc, but haven't found anyone better than this, and you say you didn't find anything useful!!! There are so many ideas here about how to find great article-sites! Search!!
I admit I'm not a know-all person, but over the years I have done much research on many topics and the finding is based on that. May be, there are still better sites probing AC than this, but overall we have much better content here.
What are your niche topics, and are they compatible to what AC wants from its content providers? If not, then you must know what AC wants: for example, How to..., Product reviews, great travel experience, etc. Concentrate on at least one of these, and then learn more about the niche from the established and leading sites on that topic. Then use their quality content to draft your ideas. In this way you produce great and unique content. There are "other" methods that are more powerful, but you need some skills to stay below the AC radar, which is getting more and more "sophisticated".
Read all the threads on BHW's
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/f107-associated-content-writing-articles/ section.
All! I do this frequently and find great knowledge every time.
P.S.: Just rambling here:
I began my career in computers & computing way back in 1986, and we absolutely didn't had such quality and variety of topics on the internet... actually, we didn't even had the internet then! It came much much later! It also brought very good opportunities for you younger people who are very lucky to have almost everything on your plates, especially now. Not so long ago, we had to spend actual hard cash, buy expensive books offline, and get those 2 lines from them to clear our computing hurdles! That was the cave-man-age then, but now things are so different and super advanced!
The best appetizer is the Google search engine! Use it wisely and take ACTION on what you learn from it.
So take ACTION and read through some of the great threads here and you will find everything that you are looking for.
