Publishing What the World a Search Engine Wants
Thrown into the spotlight by Google’s recently declared update targeting the practice of content farming, so-called info factories and their presence online is impossible to ignore. And for freelancers looking for a reliable source of income, however modest, the work they offer can be enticing.
Part of the February 27 episode of CBC’s Sunday Edition was devoted to one company whose name is becoming synonymous with content farming. Until recently, Demand Media hasn’t grabbed many headlines, but it has made a whole lot of cash. Its army of freelancers write short service-journalism articles — about topics generated by an algorithm — that attract scores of visitors to the company’s sites (with some help from search-engine optimization).
In Sunday Edition host Michael Enright’s hair-raising intro and Ira Basen’s first-person documentary, the following facts about Demand Media emerge:
- Publishes more than 5,000 stories a day on the internet
- Employs more than 10,000 freelance writers, editors, and videographers
- Is the largest single source of videos on YouTube
- Its market value in January, when its stock was first offered publicly, was $1.5 billion (the first billion-dollar IPO on Wall Street since Google’s and, notably, valued higher than the New York Times)
- Owns 60 web properties, including eHow.com and Answerbag.com, which altogether get more than 80 million visitors per month
- Its freelancers answer more than 5,000 questions per day
- Making a two-minute video pays betwee $15 and $20, while writing a post pays $5 for 200 words, or $15 for 750
Listen to the full segment here. [Intro begins at 1:15 and documentary at 3:00.]
