Keene on Tech

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Recently, the ReadWriteWeb blog founder and editor-in-chief, Richard MacManus posted a short piece titled Top Trends 2010: Content Farms. This was a follow up done in late 2009 and expands a bit on the growth of these websites. These content farms literally farm out jobs to freelancers who contribute a great deal of content very quickly. Most of this is very “uninspired” as MacManus aptly puts it. How can it possibly be inspired? This is fast food content, deeply fried. Produce it quickly and copiously, get it out there and maximize it for the most page views and advertisement potential. This content drives web traffic and fills financial coffers for these players. This leads to the big looming question – What is this doing to quality content on the web and can it take a stand against the onslaught of mediocre media?

The rise of the ubiquity of cellular networks, broadband and the 24/7 information age are helping to feed the content farms. People just want to know. And know right now! The trouble is this is swamping the web with ho-hum content that has been tweaked to get high search engine rankings. One begins to wonder what affect this has on all the brains between the eyeballs that read this content. This goes hand in hand with the fast past paced, short attention span, “I need answers right now” culture that the web has spun into place. They can’t really be blamed. Can they?

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