Demand Media Shuts Austin Office & Fires All Employees

[martinibuster]

Demand Media, a company whose websites were built around keywords and not users, has shut their Austin offices and fired all the employees in that office, roughly 100 employees. Reported in Performance Marketing Insider [performinsider.com].

The classic SEO method was to create a list of keywords and build the strategy outward from there. I stopped doing that years ago. Many searches bring results that don't even feature the typed keywords. Many of Demand Media's sites were created in this manner. Will you miss it if it goes away?

[Leosghost]

Schadenfreude..:)

And to answer your question :) Nope ..won't miss the human powered scraper at all ..Hope the rest follow..Looking at you Pinterest..

[RhinoFish]

They own content farm (aka long tail) sites like eHow and LiveStrong. They also own eNom. I'd guess it's just a shift, the Austin office's work must have got nixed.

DM bought Society6 a year or two ago, and everywhere I go, young people are telling me about Society6 (they used to say Etsy and Zazzle, before that CafePress). So I bet Demand is just reacting to a shift in the demand for certain types of media (sorry, couldn't help myself there).

[martinibuster]

More news and a clarification. The Austin office used to hold 100 employees until they sold their Pluck division in February. So the move is only affecting 30 employees.
[bizjournals.com...]

[buckworks]

At its high in 2011 the company’s stock (NYSE: DMD) traded at more than $600 per share. Nearly four years ( and one stock split later) some stock researchers have downgraded Demand Media to “sell” last week. Shares are trading at less than $5.

Schadenfreude

Yup.