psmith, journalist: Demand Media: The $114 million content machine that has nothing to do with news
Monday, 9 August 2010, 15:17
Patrick Smith: "As the debate continues as to how the media industry might sustain news and original journalism, I increasingly wonder if legacy print-based publishers should somehow use all the revenue tools and models available as online publishers and simply make enough money to cross-subsidise their journalism. So it’s less about 'making money from news', as 'making money from whatever works'. This is why Will Lewis and the Telegraph’s ill-fated Euston Project was such an exciting idea."
FT.com: Google eyes Demand Media’s way with words
Monday, 19 July 2010, 11:22
"A recently granted patent to Google that appears to replicate one part of what has made Demand [Media]’s approach to content so successful … Google’s patent on 'identifying inadequate content', co-authored by some of the search group’s leading thinkers, including Hal Varian its chief economist, details a similar system that analyses search engine queries to spot topics of high interest which are not readily available from publishers. What Google plans to do with the patent or whether it will build a product is not known."
FT.com: Google eyes Demand Media’s way with words
Monday, 19 July 2010, 11:22
"A recently granted patent to Google that appears to replicate one part of what has made Demand [Media]’s approach to content so successful … Google’s patent on 'identifying inadequate content', co-authored by some of the search group’s leading thinkers, including Hal Varian its chief economist, details a similar system that analyses search engine queries to spot topics of high interest which are not readily available from publishers. What Google plans to do with the patent or whether it will build a product is not known."
Los Angeles Times: Demand Media to provide travel articles and videos for USA Today website
Sunday, 11 April 2010, 08:42
"Demand Media Inc., often pilloried by the media pundits as a factory for online content, has struck a deal to provide travel articles and videos for one of the nation's biggest media brands, Gannett Inc.'s USA Today."
psmith, journalist: Why algorithms are the future of publishing, but the UK is behind schedule
Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 09:03
Patrick Smith quotes Demand Media's Steven Kydd: "The business has been growing so fast in the US that we decided to delay our UK launch slightly so we could deal with the hyper-growth. We don’t have any news to share on accepting non-US contributors yet, but we will shortly. Stay tuned”
BuzzMachine: Content farms v. curating farmers
Tuesday, 15 December 2009, 01:07
Jeff Jarvis: "I think we may see search fall as the sole or even key means of discovery and filtering of quality content. I see three rings of discovery today: search (Google); algorithms (see: Google News, Daylife); and humans (see: Twitter). Note again that Bit.ly alone causes as many clicks a month—one billion—as Google News. Human power rises again. That’s what Fred Wilson says today when he argues that social beats search, because 'it’s a lot harder to spam yourself into a social graph.'"
ReadWriteWeb: Content Farms: Why Media, Blogs & Google Should Be Worried
Sunday, 13 December 2009, 23:02
"The bottom line is that the quality of content produced by these 'content farms' is dubious, which has an impact on both publishers and readers."
