Work. Life. Limericks.

newsweek:

mikehudack:

soupsoup:

Yahoo, in a clear attempt to get deep into the social content space and better compete with both AOL and Demand Media, announced the acquisition of Associated Content.

Sources close to the situation said the price was $90 million in cash, which is a solid outcome for Associated Content, which was competing in a very crowded space.

Are you kidding? $90 million cash is a FANTASTIC deal for Associated Content. We’re skeptical of the whole future of content farms—they get rock bottom ad rates, and the model they’re working on, people finding content primarily through search, is in increasingly outdated one. Unless Yahoo can find a way to splice AC into social networks, this seems like a lot of money to pay.

As someone who has written (and currently writes for) some “content farms” for spending money, I can easily agree with the idea that these models are becoming increasingly outdated. My personal revenue share articles have shown that the profitability of these sites is starting to wane, especially with advances in ad blockers and the increased savvy of consumers concerning these ads.

However, these companies are still making money. In fact, they’re making a lot of money:

This massive array of articles and videos — and the resulting advertising — has allowed Demand to achieve the holy grail of online content providers: it is profitable. In 2009, its owners anticipate revenues of $200 million.

Now, those figures can change at any time. Most of these content farms rely on Google and other search engines for their traffic (and their profit, in terms of AdSense) and these companies can change their algorithms at any time.