as nyse dmd industry internet founded may 1 2006 ; 10 years ago 2006 05 01 santa monica california u.s. headquarters 1655 26th street santa monica california usa key people sean moriarty chief executive officer revenue us 325 million 2011 1 number of employees 400 2015 website demand media demand media inc. is an american content company 2 that operates online brands including ehow livestrong.com and marketplace brands saatchi art and society6 . 3 demand media s business model is controversial because its content farms have been accused of polluting search engine results with spam . 4 the company also provides social media platforms to existing large company websites and distributes content bundled with social media tools to outlets around the web . 5 6 demand media was created in 2006 by a former private equity investor shawn colo and the former chairman of myspace richard rosenblatt . the company employs an algorithm that identifies topics with high advertising potential based on search engine query data and bids on advertising auctions . these topics are typically in the advice and how to field . it then commissions freelancers to produce corresponding text or video content . the content is posted on a variety of sites including youtube and the company s own sites such as ehow airliners.net and livestrong.com . 7 8 contents 1 content & media 2 marketplaces 3 history 4 acquisitions and dispositions 5 business model 6 stock offer 7 criticism 8 references 9 external links content & media edit demand media s content & media service offering includes leading owned and operated online properties that publish content in text video photography and designed visual formats . this content is published across several key categories on ehow.com a how to reference and do it yourself destination livestrong.com a health and healthy living destination and certain niche properties focused on specific interests . it also owns and operates leaftv a lifestyle resource for women that produces high quality short form how to videos covering stylish living food and fashion . additionally its studiod business develops and executes content marketing strategies and creates custom content for third party brands agencies and publishers . 9 marketplaces edit through its marketplaces service offering demand media operates two leading art and design marketplaces where large communities of artists can market and sell their original artwork or their original designs printed on a wide variety of products . 10 society6.com which it acquired in june 2013 11 provides artists with an online commerce platform to feature and sell their original images or designs on consumer products such as art prints phone and tablet cases t shirts mugs blankets tapestries wall clocks duvet covers shower curtains and throw pillows . saatchiart.com which it acquired in august 2014 12 is an online art gallery featuring a wide selection of original paintings drawings sculptures and photography that provides a global community of artists a curated environment in which to exhibit and sell their work directly to consumers around the world . 10 history edit demand media was co founded in may 2006 13 by richard rosenblatt and shawn colo. rosenblatt has a long history of building and selling internet media companies . as chief executive officer of intermix media and chairman of myspace.com rosenblatt was one of the innovators of internet social networking . 14 colo is a financial acquisition specialist . he worked for 10 years in the private equity industry as a principal with spectrum equity investors specializing in media and communications companies . 15 demand media raised more than 355 million in financing over its first two years from investors such as oak investment partners spectrum equity investors generation partners and goldman sachs . 16 17 in june 2007 demand media hired charles hilliard a former morgan stanley investment banker netzero united online senior executive and initial public offering ipo specialist as its president and chief financial officer 18 and acquired byron reese s how to website expertvillage.com of austin tx for about 20 million . reese became the company s chief innovation officer and developed the algorithm that the company uses to identify topics with high advertising potential . 7 by 2008 demand media had acquired more than 30 domain name portfolios and owned 65 destination websites . it said that its 2009 revenue was nearly 200 million and that it was making a profit 19 but it was later reported that the company had never been profitable . 20 in july 2008 it was reported that yahoo was interested in buying demand media for between 1.5 billion and 2 billion . 21 sources close to both companies said yahoo executives were attracted to demand media s generation of advertising impressions and its ability to create niche social networks for media sites . demand media ceo richard rosenblatt later said that the company was not for sale . 22 the deal never got past the talking stage . it was reported that rosenblatt wanted a price closer to 3 billion for demand media . 23 in august 2014 demand media acquired online art gallery marketplace saatchi art and named the startup s top executive sean moriarty as the new ceo of demand media inc. 24 acquisitions and dispositions edit since 2006 demand media has acquired a collection of relatively unknown sites and relaunched them with social networking features and video capabilities that serve specific niche interests 25 in the company s first six months it made nine acquisitions including the purchase of major registrars enom and bulkregister . 26 on november 6 2008 shawn colo head of demand media mergers and acquisitions said the company would continue to buy niche well trafficked sites because the company was profitable and still had a lot of cash in the bank . 27 in 2008 demand media acquired pluck a company providing social networking and commenting solutions to other websites for a reported 75 million in cash . 28 indieclick and rss graffiti were acquired in august 2011 . 29 30 name.com a domain name registrar was acquired on january 7 2013 . 31 society6 was acquired on june 25 2013 . 32 and saatchi online was acquired on august 11 2014 . 33 in august 2014 demand media announced it had successfully separated from rightside group ltd. and its brands enom name.com and namejet . as a result of the separation demand media is no longer a provider of domain name services . 34 in april 2016 demand media announced the sale of its brand cracked.com to e.w. scripps . 35 in may 2016 demand media announced the sale of its brand trails.com to lovetoknow . 36 business model edit demand media executives say their websites are content driven to attract visitors by showing up in multiword search engine queries . the more words that are typed into a search engine the more specific the search will be . this is called the long tail 37 search . demand media attempts to get visitors to its websites with these long tail searches . it then tries to retain visitors with related content and social media tools . its social media platforms get 3 billion interactions per month for clients with already well established brands . 38 demand media commissions specific website content that it then distributes to its own websites and others where it has advertising revenue sharing agreements . 39 as of 2008 update demand media owned 135 000 videos and 340 000 articles . it is the largest contributor to youtube uploading between 10 000 and 20 000 new videos per month and gets about 1.5 million page views per day on youtube . 40 content is generated via a process in which demand media uses algorithms to generate titles then posts the titles to a screened pool of freelance writers or video creators . the list of available titles used to be over 100 000 but was severely curtailed in the second half of 2011 . typically writers can claim up to ten titles and then have a week to submit the articles . format and length are dictated by guidelines . submitted articles go to an editor also a freelancer who can either clean it up or request a rewrite . after writers submit a revised article it is either accepted or rejected . payment via paypal is twice a week . demand media s acquisition of pluck.com in 2008 gave it the means to provide specialized content and social media platforms to any website . 21 the content comes with advertising attached . the website owners get free content for their sites and split the advertising revenue with demand media . stock offer edit in april 2010 financial times reported that demand media was planning an initial public offering of shares ipo which would mean any acquisitions would be out of the question . ipo filing was completed in august of that year . shares were at first expected to be offered in december 2010 in a tender that would give demand media a value of some 1.5 billion . 41 however as a result of a securities and exchange commission investigation regarding the company s novel accounting for long lived content the pricing was delayed . on january 12 2011 the company announced it would price its shares between 14 and 16 each giving it a valuation of approximately 1.3 billion . 42 questions were raised about demand media s claim to be profitable given that its ipo filings show that had reported losses for the past several years . some writers said that the company s accounting practices had been the subject of recent government examination . 43 44 45 46 47 criticism edit this section may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints . please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints or discuss the issue on the talk page . april 2015 demand media has attracted criticism from internet watchdogs for being one of the largest buyers of articles and videos often commissioning low quality articles to cut costs in an effort to mass produce articles and videos to appear highly on google search results 37 purchasing thousands of search engine driven content from low paid freelancers to use on its websites to attract advertisers such as google adsense s simpli . 48 49 demand media has also been criticized for its methods of accounting such as capitalizing the costs of content and amortizing them over five years giving them the appearance of profitability . 50 references edit demand media sec 10 k filing dated february 25 2012 . demand media corporate profile retrieved february 28 2012 . demand media . demand media . retrieved 2016 04 27 . demand media search spam or the future of content . gigaom . michael lopresti econtent digital content strategies and resources december 1 2008 . company overview of demand media inc. . bloomberg businessweek . retrieved december 15 2014 . a b roth daniel october 19 2009 . the answer factory demand media and the fast disposable and profitable as hell media model . wired . david carr february 7 2010 . plentiful content so cheap . the new york times . demand media december 31 2014 . 10 k report . www.sec.gov . united states securities and exchange commission . a b demand media december 31 2014 . 10 k report . www.sec.gov . united states securities and exchange commission . retrieved december 16 2015 . demand media acquires e commerce marketplace for 94 million . reuters . 2013 06 24 . retrieved 2015 12 16 . demand media buys saatchi art names sean moriarty as ceo . latimes.com . retrieved 2015 12 16 . matt marshall silicon beat the mercury news demand media raises 120 million for a bunch of shell websites may 2 2006 . john heilemann cnnmoney.com giving the audience its own domain profile of richard rosenblatt shawn colo co founder and head of