

What it's like to write for Demand Media - kia
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_its_like_to_write_for_demand_media.php

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lwhi
From reading the article, it seems that Demand Media treats writers as a
(completely replaceable) commodity.

I don't think the fact that they pay a (highly debate-ably) reasonable wage to
writers, is a good reason for viewing their operation more favourably.

In my opinion, sites like this (and other crowd-sourcing sites) are effecting
cultural change by exploiting the bad-times. Recession helps their models
world well, because there are more skilled people around without jobs.

At the end of the day, I don't think the output that Demand Media creates
makes the world a better place.

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blr_hack
Isn't the Demand Media world, an outcome of the inherent shortcomings of the
Google search engine? -- There will be people to exploit every loophole in any
system.

In mid-late 90s (for all non-google search engines) you had the problem of
link stuffing. Now its SEO!

Wonder, if the success of Adwords, and lack of real competition, is holding
back Google from innovating fast enough in search technology.

That's why we need some _real_ competition in search. And fast. Will it come
for Blekko, Bing or Facebook?

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patio11
Google could wipe Demand Media out with a mouse click. I do not think they
perceive DM or DM's model as being bad things for the Internet in aggregate.
(Well, for Google in aggregate anyhow, and Google sees itself as coextensive
with the Internet. They aren't that wrong either.)

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robryan
It's only really bad for Google if people consistently get send to demand
media articles and are unhappy with the experience compared with the
alternatives.

I'd imagine for a lot of keywords the demand media article your getting
wouldn't be all that bad compared with alternatives available. The key is to
rank higher quality sources above this kind of stuff where available. I'm sure
average internet users are becoming smarter all the time about evaluating the
Google results and the page they land on to decide if there is any value
there.

