Are Content Farms Creating ‘Digital Serfs’?

AdAdge recently ran a piece discussing the move toward content outsourcing in traditional media, from “in-house” journalists and editors to third party “content farms” such as Demand Media and Associated Content:

Hachette is using Associated to supply some content for its Woman’s Day site. Thomson Reuters experimented with Associated for a limited period of time last year but plans to ink similar deals in the future, whether with Associated or another content provider. And Cox’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a handful of articles from Associated last summer; it is now running regular articles supplied by Demand Media.

Such partnerships further the ongoing shift among established news operations to capitalize on the availability of cheap content, such as USA Today’s recent deal with Demand Media, which is using its network of freelancers to supply pieces for a new Travel Tips section on USA Today’s website.

In the past I’ve criticized Demand and Associated Content as being fountains of crap content, much like the oil spill in the Gulf is spewing junk into the ocean. But that’s unfair; many of the writers that work for (freelance for) these organizations are former journalists or people with expertise in the areas they’re writing about.

At least some of the content being generated then will be of reasonable and maybe even high quality. The issue as the AdAge piece points out is cost; these sources are just much cheaper than headcount:

Associated pays its contributors anywhere from $5 to $30 per article, sometimes upfront — and in some cases pays a performance fee of up to $2 for every 1,000 impressions the story generates within Associated Content’s site.

The margins on these articles are quite large; but the publisher pays no health insurance or other overhead costs — Demand says it provides “access” to health insurance — so the bottom line on outsourcing is highly favorable vs. hiring staff writers and editors.

Maybe someone will come forward and claim to be making “six figures” from writing for one of these companies but I’m skeptical. What we’re seeing develop, accordingly, is a class of underpaid writer-content creators or “digital serfs” who are largely anonymous and fungible. Some people may, of course, be using content farms as a kind of SEO strategy to promote themselves or their businesses. But those savvy folks are likely in the minority.

Branded publishers know that they can’t maintain their reputations by relying primarily on this stuff but they can back-fill or round out their content online with help from Demand or Associated Content.

Perhaps these companies are simply filling a void and need created by the disruptive influence of the Internet, which won’t support ad revenues comparable to print and thus the staffing. Perhaps these are the new economics of content creation online. But the creation of a class of digital serfs is a lamentable outcome in my opinion.

Direct Mail Drives Consumers Online

One of the more interesting findings of a recent consumer survey conducted by marketing firm AIS Media, Inc. (designed to promote web development for insurance companies) is the following:

59% of the [survey] respondents stated that after receiving an insurance offer in the mail they are more likely to visit the insurance company’s website rather than call the company.

This is consistent with other studies that show people are often stimulated to go to the Internet by some traditional ad (newspaper, outdoor, TV). This is also true with catalog retail: catalog comes in the mail and users go online to order.

Other survey findings released:

• 32%  of consumers researching insurance options turn to search engines to begin their research versus only 3% that use the [print] Yellow Pages.
• A third of all survey respondents would consider purchasing their insurance online, which indicates to the insurance industry, like numerous other industries, the web is now the first stop for a growing number of Americans.

My point here is to point out again that traditional advertising and the Internet complement one another. Arguably the connections between traditional media and the Internet are reinforced and made more powerful with mobile devices.

Coupons in UK Google Search Results

I was sent a couple of screenshots that indicate Google Places (former LBC) coupons are making their way into UK SERPs (click to enlarge):

I wasn’t able to duplicate this in US results simply by searching on categories and locations. If you include “coupon” in the query you do get lots of coupon results.

Has anyone else seen this?

Google blew it, in my view, some time ago by not more aggressively promoting local coupons or being a coupon aggregator. Given what’s happening with LBS providers such as Foursquare (basically a mobile loyalty platform) we’ll see if Google steps up with local coupons.

Sency, Location & Geotweets

I spoke with Evan Britton, who founded Sency a Twitter search engine. The company (at Chirp) was the first to launch a geographic lens on tweets. Britton refers to it as “real time location search.”

In New York for example I can find out what’s being said about the Times Square bomb in real time:

But one quickly can imagine that it could be used in the same way other engines are used to gain information on local businesses, places and events. The challenge with the “Twitter firehose” is cutting through the noise and organizing and filtering the information in usable ways.

Britton estimated that location information (either via geotagging or place information from Twitter profiles) covers more than 20% of all tweets today. That number, regardless of its precision, will grow as more and more tweets are geotagged.

Citysearch is obviously associating tweets about particular restaurants and places with their profile pages. But there’s a great deal more to come on this front. And those that can do the best job of separating wheat from chaff will be the winners.

You can bet that lots of folks will get into this game as more and more tweets become associated with places. And as Twitter posts are indexed by major search engines and secondary engines such as Sency you can also imagine how Twitter becomes an increasingly effective local-promotional tool for SMBs.

Manta Emerges as SMB Marketing Channel

Manta may be the most important SMB site that you’ve never heard of. Manta sees itself providing business intelligence about and for small businesses. You can think of Manta as a cross between LinkedIn, Hoovers and AllBusiness.com, with a little Merchant Circle thrown in for seasoning.

The site offers Hoovers-like profiles of SMBs, but for free. The company has data on 64 million companies globally with 22 million of those located in the US. It also invites small business owners to claim and enhance their listings. And Manta encourages SMBs to connect with one another and provides “how to” and Q&A info as well.

Here’s the official list of features/benefits:

• Update their company profile or add their company to Manta. (Get details.)
• Connect to other Manta members to build business relationships.
• Find sales prospects and partners.
• Create and store lists and pipeline reports. (Get details.)
• Get great tips and advice in our series of email newsletters.
• Find thousands of market research reports.

There’s also an SEO angle here for SMBs who claim and enhance their listings. Although there are no formal SEM/SEO marketing programs being run that’s clearly something the site could offer its members. It’s something I suggested and discussed with CEO Pamela Springer.

Manta gets its data on SMBs from various third parties and then seeks to enhance that by getting the SMBs to provide additional information as mentioned. Manta says that it has 13 million monthly uniques. It also says it has one million registered users.

Manta could be a way to reach and market to SMBs (or prospect), as well as another way for SMBs to disseminate their information and market themselves across the Internet. Both of those models are as yet not fully developed however.

Angie’s List Now Doing TV Spots

In all the hype and frenzy around LBS and shiny new things, I often forget to mention Angie’s List. People from time to time mention to me that they’ve heard a commercial on the radio or, now, seen TV commercials for Angie’s List. As one of the few subscription-based models in Local the site defies the conventional wisdom.

Yet each time I’ve spoken the Angie Hicks or representatives of Angie’s List they’ve told me that the site continues to grow and that subscriber retention is very high.

Anyone have a sense (empirically or anecdotally) about how they’re doing?