4 ms·

The Rise of Content Farms

41 points by J3L2404 17y ago

byrneseyeview 17y ago
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.
- smokinn 17y ago
  More likely their marketing push is starting to have effect.
- Vivtek 17y ago
  I do, and writing experience, and they didn't.
byrneseyeview 17y ago
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.
Vivtek 17y ago
"AOL, a web portal which was recently spun off from Time Warner, a media giant" Quite the grasp of history there...
- nudge 17y ago
  The quote is entirely accurate. AOL was spun off on December 9, 2009.
  - Vivtek 17y ago
    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 17y ago
      Ironic that we're reading this article from a bastion of "pay for high quality" and such is the quality we receive.
      - nudge 17y ago
        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 17y ago
        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 17y ago
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.
r0s 17y ago
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?
vaksel 17y ago
this could be easily fixed if Google would allow people to ban domains permanently in preferences.

41 points by J3L2404 17y ago

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.

smokinn 17y ago
More likely their marketing push is starting to have effect.
Vivtek 17y ago
I do, and writing experience, and they didn't.

byrneseyeview 17y ago

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.

Vivtek 17y ago

"AOL, a web portal which was recently spun off from Time Warner, a media giant" Quite the grasp of history there...

nudge 17y ago
The quote is entirely accurate. AOL was spun off on December 9, 2009.
- Vivtek 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    Ironic that we're reading this article from a bastion of "pay for high quality" and such is the quality we receive.
    - nudge 17y ago
      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 17y ago
        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 17y ago

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.

r0s 17y ago

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?

vaksel 17y ago

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