The Economist looks at the rise of the content farm, places like Demand Media that produce material based on what algorithms tell it users are interested in.

It has a look, too, at AOL's recent transition to a service with more original content --- although it won't lump it into the content farm category.

The challenge, the newsmagazine notes, is that the business model for online journalism is still elusive. Services like Demand Media are paying contributors to produce what people want and attaching a value to that content which ought to grow in time.

The trouble, as commentators note in the piece, is that it can flood the Internet with mediocre material.
 
 
ReadWriteWeb's Richard McManus has weighed in again on the traffic-by-tonnage debate in chronicling the rise of the "content farms" at such sites as Demand Media and Answers.com.

In case the term is unfamiliar, it is applied to sites that generate loads of content, plenty of it-all-adds-up traffic through viral distribution, and loads of page impressions for advertisers. The critics suggest it's lacking in depth and riddling the Web with low-quality data ultimately for attracting ineffective advertising.

The challenge is that this content is very friendly for search engines because of its frequent filing and optimization. The bigger challenge is for Google and others to find ways to elevate higher-quality material.
 

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