Nobody wants to read about this ... here's why ... 

U. X. D. All together now: "Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!"

I was going to write a post about a User Experience Design, but I am a strong believer that industry buzzwords, acronyms and tech-speak should generally be avoided at all costs – except when locking horns with industry peers.

And despite UXD being a growing ‘discipline’ within the loosely termed field of online or interactive media, I suspect that most people (i.e. your average Internet user) has little or no interest in the academic or philosophical machinations of how to, or not to, create compelling and enjoyable online experiences. Or offline experiences, for that matter.

For most people, UXD means nothing – and nor should it. A website is great, it’s ok or it’s rubbish. It’s as simple as that. People enjoy using Trade Me because it works. They can tell you about the great bargain they just purchased, but they won’t tell you how tightly Trade Me's website is coded.

If somebody purchased this on Trade Me, they wouldn't be rushing to tell their mates about the great 'user experience' they just had. It's a My Little Stormtrooper Pony - now that's something to get excited about. Image source: http://bit.ly/zQhwP  

If you want to binge on the amorphous, contentious and mysterious world of User Experience Design (UXD) then try this aggregation haven for an all-you-can-eat bonanza on said topic. There is even an Information Architecture television network for heaven’s sake!

Here's what people really want...

Show me the money

Something that everyone in the media (old or new), publishing and entertainment industries has been either ignoring, embracing, fudging or desperately trying to ‘monetize’ for the last few years is the dark art of how to extract value from online content, when everything (music, TV, film, news, information, software) exists in a climate of ‘openness’, ‘freeware’ and ‘file sharing’.

One of the major players in this space is Demand Media. You may have heard of them. If not, you’ve almost certainly seen ‘their content’ (although you were probably unaware of it). Demand Media is widely reported as being the largest contributor of content to YouTube. Apparently, they contribute five times more video to YouTube than any other single source.

Worried about what your kids are watching? Maybe you should worry about where it's all coming from? Image source: http://bit.ly/cOpRor

Who and what is Demand Media? Everyone knows what a search engine is. Demand Media is a content engine that generates 4,000 – 5,000 small pieces of micro-content per day. And like many web-based ideas, the business model, in this case for content creation and distribution, is bottom-up, rather than top-down.

They generate content based on popular web searches and assorted other sets of mysterious data. Their ‘magic formula’ is comprised of three parts:

   1.    Search terms
   2.    Potential ad results
   3.    Competitor behaviour

This feeds their algorithm, which coupled with a level of human intervention, feeds headlines to tempt both readers (that is, the human variety) and search ads. It’s like the colonel’s secret recipe – but for words, as opposed to fried chicken.

Everyone wants the secret recipe. Demand Media has it. Image source: http://bit.ly/cCDDUM

On their website, they say: “Every day Demand Media makes it possible for people to create and publish valuable content, for millions of Internet users to engage around passionate communities, and for thousands of websites to grow with social media features their audiences want.”

“We added science to the art of creating content,” says one of Demand’s founders. To make money, Demand Media needed to look very closely at online advertising data and figure out which keywords were the most lucrative to write about.

The way they generate content is fascinating and highly, highly specialized. One person gets paid for taking the output of Demand’s algorithm (which in its raw form is simply a collection of words that may or may not make perfect sense) and turns it into a meaningful, logical headline. The next freelancer researches and writes the actual article – usually earning anywhere between USD $3 and USD $15 depending on the length of the article. Then it goes to a copy editor who checks the facts, spelling and grammar (and banks USD $3.50 for his or her troubles).

This process can be done in less than day – then the article is immediately shipped to one of Demand’s uber portals – where, of course, if begins making ad revenue straight away because the article was carefully crafted to match what users in search engines are already looking for in the first place. It’s pretty clever stuff.

The algorithmically-generated topics go into databases where freelance writers, editors or video producers compete for the work of creating the content. The finished articles are checked, again by automated and human filters, and then fed back into one of Demand Media’s many websites such as eHow, GolfLink or LiveStrong. Their portals receive more than 100 million visits per month.

And it’s working. Demand had revenue of USD $200 million in 2009 and was profitable.

Boo hiss! Content creators can be a pain to work with. Use with caution. Or simply choose from a pool of 7,000 others. Image source: http://bit.ly/cogceE

Critics of Demand have talked of ‘content sweatshops’ and so on, as none of the content creators receive health insurance and may not even make a minimum wage (depending on their skill and expertise, and where they are from).

Time Magazine writer, Dan Fletcher, went through the rounds of the Demand content creation furnace and found he needed to write really fast and didn’t really check his facts the way he would’ve done inside a ‘regular newsroom’. He said he could make USD $60 per hour (more than his present hourly rate) but stated that his articles were ‘thinly sourced and poorly written’.

Demand does (of course) have a rating system to ensure writers maintain standards – Demand says that their approval rates for articles are less than 50%. Their co-founder, Shawn Colo, goes on to state: “It doesn’t pay to do journalism”. For example, because the company has a mantra that every written piece must be profitable, Demand Media would never send a journalist to write a piece on the latest natural disaster in some far flung corner of the globe as it would never make money. Their content algorithm would decree that, “How to remove stain from your carpet”, would be a more profitable topic. Simple.

Where to next?

The Demand Media model throws up some interesting questions. Namely, if any content is not profitable (and much of it simply isn’t – especially in the arts), why bother to fund it and who (if anybody) should be responsible?

If Demand can determine what the world wants to read, couldn’t the same model be applied to television, film, literature, gaming, fine arts, news, music and nearly every single creative endeavour?

Sure, there’s a massive leap in logic between what’s called low-end content such as an article (or video) on, “How to remove ballpoint pen ink stains from fabric”, and high-end content such as the latest Booker Prize Winner, but it raises some big, scary philosophical questions – especially around the role of the cultural gatekeeper vs. the low-brow populist (profitable) content that is often shunned by the chattering classes as having ‘little or no cultural merit’. You can imagine that Reality TV producers the world over would love to get their hands on a magic formula that worked for television production, for example.

This might be paranoid overkill. As Demand Media says, “We’re not saying we’re going to save traditional media. That’s arrogant. But we’re definitely not going to kill it.”   

Imagine if Demand Media figured out an algorithm for funding cultural content? Who would get the money when the lolly scramble was over? Computer says, 'no', perhaps? Image source: http://bit.ly/cnNah9

When thinking about matching demand to content creation, and speculating about the potential to substantially remove a layer of human creativity from the process, I don’t think that it’s a 'one or the other' kind of argument. But I do think that if you’re in the business of creating or funding cultural content that is never going to make any money, you should be thinking very seriously about juggernauts like Demand Media.

Simply because they will always have an answer for the question that artists, editors, news bosses or cultural curators never really know, which is: “Yeah, but who’s actually interested in watching / reading / hearing / playing / visiting / seeing this stuff?” Demand already has an answer. And, unfortunately, in these fiscally prudent times, where every dollar of spending is being monitored and dissected to determine its return on investment, it is often the ‘public good’ dollars that are scrutinized the hardest.

Personally, I think that applying simplistic short-term ROI metrics to public good or cultural projects doesn’t always make sense, but for big players like Demand Media, it’s not a problem they are ever going to have to worry about. And in the time it’s taken you to read this article, they became bigger, more prolific and more profitable.   

Is it something to even think about? Or is it simply just a case of a niche content format provider who are providing a clever service - using technology to figure out what practical people really want? I’d be keen to know if their algorithm ever throws up any ‘topics’ based on the relative merits of Demand Media itself.

Read more about Demand Media and see what you think:

Plentiful Content, So Cheap

Follow Demand Media on Twitter

Demand Media on Wikipedia

Demand Media content Library on YouTube

Demand Media on Buzz Machine

TheTweetgeist: Demand Media, the Google vampire, ramen news

Demand Media – They Get It

Break Media's Keith Richman: Online Video Success is About Balancing Distribution and Content

Building the Web’s Biggest, Smartest, Scariest Article Machine

Also, check out this online alternative news service: The Real News