Content Farming: Bad For Cloud Computing
Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, News
I’ve been reading recently a surge of reports about “content farming” – an insistent creation of cheap and quick content in order to drive traffic and gain revenue from Google’s ad programs. For that end, the content itself lacks a certain degree of quality as the writers are not required to have any knowledge of a subject that they are writing about.
Its purpose is to fill a known informational gap and thus reap profit from content that does not exist about a certain niche. I’d never really put much thought into what companies like Demand Studios and AOL really do. I mean, they have names that appear to some degree respectable.
But in an age where the average college student trusts whatever top query result that comes from a search engine, it’s very real the information that comes from content farms is going to really start plugging up the web. Demand Studios, which has received hundreds of millions in funding, is capable of pouring almost four thousand articles a day onto the web, and using hundreds of social media accounts to promote this content.
You’ve seen this type of content before, although you may not have realized it. It was likely a search result from a generic-looking site with an answer that is never complete enough. You know what I’m talking about.
This is not good for search engines, particularly Google themselves. While users of Android are on the rise, a cloud computing operating system like Chrome OS could reap more benefits from search results. This is based on the notion that people will use a device like that entirely on the web in full-screen mode. One problem, however, is the increased amount of information on the internet coming from more dubious sources because of content farming.
