Taylor definitions, Ch3 “online content farms”
Online Content farms are websites that traffic in appropriated content from other sources. This content is selected and prioritized according to the rank in search indices so that there is built in demand for it before it is even assembled. They consist of both reposts from other sites and quickly written articles by a horde of freelancers on subjects that can be algorithmically determined to have a high advertising value based on their popularity either in common search engines such as Google or Bing or on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Providers such as Demand Media and Buzzfeed are perhaps the most well known for this method of presenting news and information, though little of it can be truly deemed either newsworthy or informative.
Then again, as ever, there is a place for populist journalism and in the case of determining how popular content might be, it would seem there’s nothing more democratic than an algorithm. Much of what these sites provide is either already packaged elsewhere or based on whatever limited information may be available about a new or trending product, service or experience. In the case of Buzzfeed, the product is mostly the proclivities of people themselves as endless quizzes create an immersive experience that keeps the clicks coming on a site, pumping more revenue into their coffers. When search engine optimizers tweak content, they are basically trying to insert the words Google prioritizes as many times as is reasonable. While this practice is most associated with blogs and content farms, it is actually a part of the way almost any modern website is designed. Gaming social networks and search engines comes at a much lower cost than traditional advertising, but it relies of an initial devaluation of the meaning of content and a willingness to invest more time in data mining than content production.
