

The Rise of Content Farms - J3L2404
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16010291

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byrneseyeview
What _The Economist_ doesn't mention here, but should, is that content farms
negatively impact both the experience of anyone who wants to buy something
online and that of anyone who wants to sell online.

Lots of small businesses succeed by creating "long-tail" content, and using it
to get organic traffic. A ceramic mug company, for example, could have a blog
that also told readers how to paint ceramic mugs.

The Demand Media model is to outrank that content (of course), and then to
monetize the ranking with contextual ads. So the article's content must be
meaningful to search engines--but it _can't_ be a complete answer to whatever
the visitor was searching for. If it is, they'll bounce; if not, they'll keep
clicking, ideally on an ad.

Someone who controls the ad (and captures the profit from transactions) can
have a more relevant and useful call to action. The article, for example, can
end with "Ready to paint _your_ ceramic mug? Order a mug painting kit now, and
get 10% off!"

Instead, the mug company will notice that their traffic is dropping since they
can't rank for the same long-tail content. Instead, they'll start paying for
traffic. And when they do, Demand Media gets the money for their next article.

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byrneseyeview
_The results are sent to an army of 7,000 freelancers, each of whom must have
a college degree, writing experience and a speciality._

I don't have a degree, and Demand Media signed me up. I wonder if they've
raised their standards.

~~~
Vivtek
I do, and writing experience, and they didn't.

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Vivtek
" _AOL, a web portal which was recently spun off from Time Warner, a media
giant_ "

Quite the grasp of history there...

~~~
nudge
The quote is entirely accurate. AOL was spun off on December 9, 2009.

~~~
Vivtek
A man is lost in a balloon in fog; a building looms up out of the fog and
another man looks out the window. The man in the balloon says, "Excuse me, but
can you tell me where I am?" The man in the building says, "You're in a
balloon." The man in the balloon thanks him, because he answered the question
perfectly correctly, yet in such a way that he was given no new information,
thus allowing the man in the balloon to conclude that the building was
Microsoft Customer Service and he was therefore in Redmond, Washington.

~~~
DrSprout
Ironic that we're reading this article from a bastion of "pay for high
quality" and such is the quality we receive.

~~~
nudge
Seriously, what would you have preferred?

"AOL, a web portal which was recently spun off from Time Warner, a media
giant, but which a decade ago actually bought Time Warner."

Is that better? Does it make any difference?

~~~
Vivtek
Seriously? Either assume that thinking people who have an interest in business
already know what AOL is (instead of implying that there is mysteriously an
adult businessperson who has never heard of AOL), or in your definition of
"AOL", give a concise summary of its history with a time horizon greater than
three years. The sentence that was actually included was jarring in its
isolation from reality, and that's not really what you expect from the
Economist.

------
jamesshamenski
Some thoughts / insights

Demand Media (DM) only covers the surface of a topic. Never a deep dive. Thus
by nature, they are a lead generator. That's why they have descent ad rates
and can pay real wages for content. But IMHO, they haven't begun to really
profit from this position.

In content farming, whoever pays the most to their writers ultimately wins.
The best writers are attracted to the best paychecks. Because DM invested
hundreds of millions in established domains, they bought traffic and offer
better cash versus just posting on your own blog.

DM will ultimately crash directly into the way of traditional media outlets.
And it will be the aggregators like google news and huffington post who win.
Like many businesses, it's the distributors who make the lions share of
profits.

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vaksel
this could be easily fixed if Google would allow people to ban domains
permanently in preferences.

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r0s
_To earn a decent living, freelancers have to work at a breakneck pace, which
has an obvious impact on quality._

I don't know, does the increased communication power and productivity of
technology break even here? (assuming it's used correctly)

Is the average journalist using modern tools to their full potential?

