By the end of last year, two of these content farms - Demand Media and Answers.com - were firmly established inside the top 20 Web properties in the U.S. as measured by comScore. This year, Demand Media filed for IPO and two big Internet portals - AOL and Yahoo! - joined the trend. Let's take a look back on the year of the Content Farm and their collective impact in the Web.

Demand Media's IPO

Demand Media is the epitome of a content farm and by far the largest example of one, pumping out 7,000 pieces of content per day. In August Demand Media filed for IPO (Initial Public Offering), at a reported $1.5 billion valuation.

The company operates based on a simple formula: create a ton of niche, mostly uninspired content targeted to search engines, then make it viral through social software and make lots of money through ads. There has been plenty of talk about Google countering the mass production of Demand Media (and similar content farm companies), by adjusting its algorithm to better account for quality. During 2010, Google has been quiet on this issue - although I discovered from a Google source earlier in the year that Google is aware of it and is tweaking its PageRank algorithm. Google's power to devalue content farm articles may prove to be Demand Media's biggest obstacle to IPO glory in 2011.

Portals Move In: Yahoo! and AOL

One of the biggest acquisitions of the year came in the content farm space, when Yahoo! acquired Associated Content for an estimated $90-100M in May. Associated Content produces around 10,000 new pieces of content per week. The acquisition immediately increased the number of pages Yahoo! has on the Web by over 10%, adding some 20 million web pages to Yahoo's content store. It also gave Yahoo! access to 380,000 contributors.

Rather than buy, AOL decided to build its own content farm. Early in the year, AOL launched an initiative called SEED. It's a user-generated content production platform that "seeds" content among AOL's 80+ properties.

Video Content Farms

It's not just textual content being produced by content farms. Video may be the next frontier. A startup called Howcast specializes in mass production of video content, streaming 25 million videos each month on both its own web site and across a network that includes web portals like AOL and Yahoo, and online TV or video sites like YouTube, Hulu and Dailymotion.

As the name suggests, Howcast is all about how-to videos. It's betting that how-to videos will have more relevance to searchers in the near future, than textual how-to articles. Given that YouTube is already the 2nd largest search engine in the world, behind only Google, that seems a solid business assumption and makes Howcast one to watch in 2011.

The content farm companies that we've listed here have been the most prominent in 2010. But other established companies in this space have continued to chug along: About.com (owned by The New York Times), Mahalo (founded by Jason Calacanis, who sold his previous business Weblogs, Inc. to AOL in 2005) and Answers.com are three examples.

Lesser known names have ramped up this year too, such as Suite101 - which we profiled in July - and the wiki-based serviceWikiHow.

Let us know in the comments your thoughts on the growth of Content Farms in 2010. Are you worried that this will dilute the quality of information on the Web?

In our content farms coverage so far, we've focused mostly on textual content farms. But video may well be the next frontier. A startup called Howcast specializes in mass production of video content.

How Howcast Works

As the name suggests, Howcast is all about how-to videos. As with other 'content farm' companies, Howcast has identified a big opportunity to provide so-called "evergreen" informational content on the Web across hundreds of thousands of categories. The rationale being that people search, mostly on Google, for instructional content. How To Shuck an Oyster, How to Save Water in Your Garden, How to Avoid Dropped Calls on the iPhone 4, and so on.

Howcast is betting that how-to videos will have more relevance to searchers in the near future, than textual how-to articles. And given that YouTube is already the 2nd largest search engine in the world, behind only Google, that seems a solid business assumption.

Distribution

Howcast launched in February 2008 and now has nearly 200,000 instructional videos. It streams 25 million videos each month on both its own web site and across a network that includes web portals like AOL and Yahoo, and online TV or video sites like Hulu and Dailymotion. Its biggest distribution platform though is YouTube, where it has over 150,000 channel subscribers. Raman said that around 80% of its videos are viewed offsite, with 20% being viewed on Howcast's web site.

It also has a strong mobile presence, which Raman said was key to Howcast's future growth. He noted that Howcast has had over 2 million app downloads across the iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry devices. The Howcast for iPad app alone has been installed by 150,000 iPad users (approximately 5% of global iPad users) and was for a time the number 2 free iPad app in Apple's App Store.

Raman noted that user engagement is very good on mobile - for example users watch videos on average twice a day and watch two videos per session. Perhaps for this reason, Raman said that the value of users on mobile is much higher than on other platforms.

The Quality Question

In my discussion with Sanjay Raman, Chief Product Officer at Howcast, the word "quality" came up a number of times.

Every time I talk to 'content farm' companies, they insist that the aim is to produce quality content. That's because the most common criticism of content farms is that they clog up search engines with poor quality content.

In Howcast's case, the content appears to be professionally produced. It outputs about 400 how-to videos each month, most of which flows through its Emerging Filmmakers Program. Raman said that the program attracts wanna-be filmmakers, who are looking for a place to prove their skills. Howcast pays between $50-$300 per video.

Raman told me that Howcast wants to keep the content bar high. He claimed that Howcast has a much higher ratio of subscribers per video than Demand Media. Howcast is "not necessarily playing the volume game," he added.

Comparison to Demand Media

Who is the top YouTube provider, measured by views? You guessed it, Demand Media. This is because it produces far more video content per month than Howcast (Demand competes directly with Howcast with its property eHow). While Sanjay Raman didn't have exact figures, he estimated that Demand Media produces about 10 times more videos every month than Howcast. However he implied that this resulted in lower quality videos.

"Demand Media takes tasks and makes them smaller than they need to be," said Raman.

He also claimed that Howcast's playbacks per video are higher than Demand Media's. Howcast averages 44-50,000 playbacks per video, he told me, whereas Demand is around 7,000 per video.

Despite Demand Media Threat, Howcast Well Positioned

Many questions about content farms seem to center around whether other companies can compete with Demand Media, which operates on a much larger scale than its competitors. Perhaps the only company capable of stopping Demand's relentless growth is Google, which is reportedly tweaking its algorithms to better account for quality over quantity.

Howcast is hoping that its focus on professional video-making, via its filmmakers program, will lead to high search results. That remains to be seen. One thing that Howcast definitely has going for it is its positioning in the mobile space, which is increasingly where video content is consumed.

The bits and pieces submitted from around the world will then be collected and built into a feature-length documentary film that will debut at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Anyone whose footage makes it into the film will be credited as a co-director and could also be one of 20 people selected to attend the premier.

This project has enormous potential to create something truly amazing, in my opinion. YouTube is by far the largest resource for sharing and viewing video on the Web, and big name directors Scott and Macdonald should have no problem creating a compelling story from the plethora of submissions they are likely to receive.

Other projects in the past have leveraged the YouTube community to create collaborative media projects. Composer Eric Whitacre assembled a virtual "YouTube Choir" by taking submissions from users singing the various voices of a few of his choral pieces. The success of YouTube's "Life in a Day" project could be big win for crowdsourcing and the real-time Web, placing it front-and-center in the spotlight and encouraging its further evolution as a platform for multimedia collaboration.

In order to provide more accurate captions for YouTube users, The DCMP has created a list of 12 vendors that have been evaluated as "YouTube Ready." These captioning services all have their own YouTube channels and have agreed to offer specific YouTube captioning prices typically ranging from $2 to $10 per minute.

But as YouTube points out, captions aren't just about being more accessible to the hearing impaired.

"Captions ensure that many more people can understand what's happening in your video, from deaf and hard of hearing viewers to people who speak a different language from you and choose to auto-translate the captions into their language," the company said in a blog post Wednesday. "Captions also make your video a lot more discoverable. People searching for content on YouTube might encounter your video if your captions contain the words or subjects they're looking for."

It's nice that YouTube is helping to curate a list of vendors that service online video, but it would also be more encouraging to see their own automatic captions improve in quality. The captions can be so off from the original speech in the videos that they have become their own internet meme.

As for captioning on Hulu, the service already provides captions for many of its shows, but far from all of them. It also doesn't seem that captioning has made it's way onto the iPhone or iPad versions of Hulu announced earlier this week, but that could be coming in a later release.

Until better text to speech technologies can provide more consistent automatic captioning for online video, the hearing impaired continue to struggle to keep up with the continuous flow of online video. While many of the captioning services can provide accurate captions, even for events with live streaming web video, the future of true accessibility likely lies in better automatic captioning.

Fox Launches Mobile Hulu-esque Subscription Service

Fox Interactive Media, which ranks 9th on comScore's top 10 based on total videos served, announced today that it is taking a stab at mobile video subscription service with what it calls Bitbop. Is it an iPhone app? No. An Android app? No. A mobile website? No. It's an application for the BlackBerry.

BitBop, available on the BlackBerry Bold, Curve and Tour models, is a free application that allows users to watch many of the same TV shows and movies they know from Hulu directly on their phones. While the app is free to download, it comes with a subscription fee - $9.99 a month - to access content. Family Guy, The Office, 30 Rock, Glee, CSI, Friday Night Lights - all the major players are present and accounted for.

If you're asking yourself why the service is only available on the Blackberry - and why wouldn't you - it's because Fox has inked an exclusive deal with BlackBerry makers RIM (Research In Motion). It's a curious partnership, since the majority of BlackBerry owners use their devices mainly for work and enterprise functionality - not exactly the kind of people who are more like to watch online video on their mobile device, if you asked me.

Still, it will be interesting to see how it plays out and if Fox can boost their low video market share numbers. There is certainly a market for on-demand mobile video - the success of Netflix's iPad app and the anticipation of its iPhone app can speak to that thread. Whether that market is on BlackBerry devices is yet to be seen, but this partnership could bode well for both parties.

Typically, online episodes contain between 2 and 3 minutes of advertisements while traditional television broadcasts contain roughly 20 minutes for each hour. While the difference in time for ads between TV and online is significant, online ads have been found to be more effective despite being run less frequently. Therefore, it only makes sense that broadcast networks want to increase their online ads.

ABC isn't the only network making shifts in online ads for viewing television episodes. Just recently, Cartoon Network announced it would also be increasing ad numbers for online video, and other networks are pulling away from stream aggregators like Hulu to have better control over the ads and revenue.

When Hulu and Comedy Central could not agree on revenue splits, the cable channel chose to remove two of the most popular Internet generation television shows - The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Instead, Comedy Central is only allowing viewers to watch these shows on the network's homepage. Could other networks follow in their footsteps in hopes of gaining more control over advertisements?

Currently, ABC still allows viewers to watch shows both at its homepage and on Hulu, but if it sees decent returns from doubling its ads, it may not hesitate to remove its content from the aggregator. While "Hulu" is becoming a household word for "online video" in the same way "TiVo" and "Kleenex" have evolved to mean "record" and "tissue," other devices and services are still vying for competition. With set top boxes like the Roku and free services like Boxee, there are plenty of options for networks to syndicate their content and control their advertising.

Essentially, Get Seen is a comprehensive field guide for how to produce, upload, distribute and publicize online video content.

It also contains a wealth of information on and interviews with some of the most talented and successful names and faces that make up this ecosystem, from Justine Ezarik to Chris Pirillo. Steve also gets into the many tech companies that make up the world of online video, from scrappy startups like Robo.to to the industry's Goliath, YouTube.

Of course, there's a video overview of the book here:

Basically, it's required reading for anyone who wants to use online video for any purposes other than the most casual social interactions. If you're producing content and looking for eyeballs, particularly if you're using social media for business purposes, Get Seen is a must-read.

When YouTube announced the move two weeks ago, we mused over whether or not people would be willing to pay for content, as is always the question. For a relatively quick, quiet test campaign, we would venture that YouTube certainly outpaced Newsday, with its 35 online subscribers.

The 10-day test run was just the beginning, YouTube said on its blog, as the company will start to offer videos for rent "across different industries, including health and education ... in the weeks ahead."

According to the company's original announcement, content partners "can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights." This led us, of course, to wonder how much of a cut YouTube takes from the deal?

While $10,000 is chump change for a company like Google-owned YouTube, that, or even one-fifth, is anything but for the independent filmmaker - especially for a distribution deal that retains all of your rights and decision-making abilities.

YouTube Gets Into the Distribution Business

While that may make it sound potentially less appealing, he did point out that this is an opportunity for distribution, on the filmmakers terms - something most filmmakers are unlikely to run across during an entire career.

"In 2009, out of 9,000 films sent to Sundance, only 53 got distribution deals," Dale said. "That tops out at only a .6% success rate. Given that, it's important for filmmakers to have other options at their fingertips."

We tend to agree. He said that the filmmaker can decide on the pricing, ranging anywhere from 99 cents to around $20, but again wouldn't confirm anything further on the split. The deal gives filmmakers a reputable locale to offer their product and a potential for income as well as exposure. We think this could provide an interesting outlet for smaller filmmakers who can't afford the expenses of DVD distribution deals. It also puts YouTube in a good spot, both providing these filmmakers with an outlet, as they've always done, while providing them a source of income.

New Video Pages

As Google emphasized in the announcement today, the new pages put the video at the center of the experience. The new video pages are very stripped down and somewhat reminiscent of the YouTube "Feather" experiment Google launched last December.

The description of the currently playing video has moved underneath the video, leaving more space on the sidebar for related videos or a list of other videos in the current playlist. The new pages also put a larger emphasis on related videos.

If you start a search on YouTube while a video is playing, the results will appear right on the same page without interrupting the video that is currently playing. Search results appear on the right side of the screen, while the video continues to play in a smaller player on the left side of the page.

Improved Video Player

The player itself has also been redesigned. You can now switch between different player sizes. Switching between different video qualities (SD, HD or 1080p) is now done through a drop-down menu.

New Ratings System

YouTube also did away with the old ratings system. Instead of rating a video on a 1 to 5 star scale, YouTube moved to a "Like/Don't Like" model. According to Google, YouTube's users only gave 1 and 5 star reviews to videos anyway and skipped over the intermediate ratings.

What do You Think?

To us, the new pages are a welcome departure from the crowded old YouTube pages. What do you think? Is this a step forward for YouTube or will it be a failed experiment?

The documentary was shot by Delib founder Chris Quigley over two months last year, both on location in Washington DC and via Skype.

Quigley's interviewees ended up ranging from the White House's head of the Open Gov initiative, Beth Noveck, to Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media.

To learn more about the interviews and process, check out Delib's page on the film.

Check out these posts from ReadWriteWeb's Government archives.

Clicker wants to change this by making it easier to find shows from TV networks, music videos, and web videos from across the Internet. Clicker is currently in private beta and only available in the US. The company gave us 1000 invites for our readers. Read on to find out how you can get yours.

Features and User Interface

There are, of course, already numerous video search engines like blinkx or Truveo. Few of these make it as easy as Clicker to find the videos you are looking for, however. With auto-completed searches, a smart categorization system and well designed search results page, finding the right video on Clicker is a snap.

Whenever possible, Clicker uses video embeds to play videos right on its own page, though if a show can't be embedded, Clicker will point to other sources. It's important to point out that while most of these videos are available for free, Clicker also indexes shows that are only available for paid downloads and streams on services like iTunes or Amazon. Clicker also indexes shows from Netflix - though you need to be a Netflix subscriber to stream these.

A very useful feature on Clicker is that users can subscribe to shows and build up a personal library of shows and playlists. Every episode page gives users the option to add this episode to the playlist or to subscribe to the complete series. Clicker also keeps a record of all the shows a user has watched already.

All of these features are nice and useful, but the area where Clicker really shines is in how it presents the search results and how easy it is to browse the site and discover shows.

Taming the Wild West of Online Video

With its focus on indexing high-quality videos and making it easy to find them, Clicker manages to stand out from its competition. Earlier this week, Clicker added Blake Krikorian, the founder of Sling Media to its board of directors, whose experience in this market will definitely be a boon for the company.

As Clicker's CEO Jim Lanzone told us earlier today, online video is still going through its Wild West phase. Thanks to services like Clicker, it's now getting a lot easier to find and play online videos without having to search through dozens of sites.

Invites

Clicker gave us 1000 invites. Simply click here, sign up, and you are ready to go.

Desktop Uploader

The desktop uploader will allow Vimeo users to upload multiple videos at the same time. Users also won't have to worry about browser time-outs anymore, and the uploader will make it easy to pause and resume uploads if necessary.

Stats

The new stats package will aggregate data about likes and plays, referrer data, HD vs. SD plays, loads and finishes, as well as information about how often a video was shared and downloaded. Most of these features will be available only to users with paid accounts, though some of the more basic functions will also come to Vimeo's free accounts as well.

While the desktop uploader should be available fairly soon, Vimeo stated only that the advanced stats would be launched "before the end of the year."

Overall, it looks like Vimeo is on the right track with these updates. The uploader is useful, but the stats are a must for a paid online video service these days. Some of Vimeo's competitors like Blip and Viddler also offer stats, though Vimeo's new stats look to be far more in-depth than what its competitors currently offer.

The mega-video site is partnering with Videomaker magazine to offer free webinars on topics of interest to the would-be iJustines and Ask A Ninjas of the world. Topics will cover how to shop for a video camera, microphone techniques, lighting and all the basics of shooting palatable online video content.

Because different content creators struggle with different elements of online video, YouTube is asking users to vote on which topics the first webinar should cover. Options include shopping for a camcorder, button basics, lighting and filtering, microphone techniques, the art of composition and handheld camera techniques. Users can also submit their own ideas and discuss common issues.

The first webinar is scheduled to take place October 27, 2009, at 2 pm Pacific Time/5 pm Eastern Time. The webinar will last for one hour, and interested parties can register here.

As we already know, one of the best ways to avoid the brutality that is YouTube comments (which were recently voted the worst thing on the Internet, we will have you know) is to shoot high-quality video content. Even with inexpensive equipment and no formal filmic education, many YouTube heroes have learned to generate stellar videos. All it takes is practice and a few hints from folks who know. Props to YouTube for giving its users a little nudge in the right direction.

And if you can't make time for the webinar, just watch this very serious and detailed tutorial on video blogging from Justine Ezarik:

NBC's Zucker also hinted at the company's interest in the matter. "Whether there are other ways to monetize Hulu down the road, it is something that we are open to, something we will explore," he said, but like Murdoch, reiterated "there are no plans at this time."

Subscription Services Already in Testing?

While that may be the official company line, other sites are reporting a slightly different variation on this story. The Business of Video blog, for example, says they've been in contact with sources who have confirmed that Hulu is already beta testing a subscription-based service internally and is working out the technical requirements. If that story is to be believed, the offering won't go live anytime this year as Hulu still needs to figure out the details of the business plan.

Whether or not that rumor is true, it wouldn't be surprising to hear that Hulu is working on such a project, given their obvious interest in adding more revenue-generating features to the site. Zucker himself even updated his ongoing conference comment about "analog dollars" being used to chase "digital dimes." (In 2008, it was "digital pennies.") "Certainly by next year the goal should be at least quarters," he joked.

What We Want to See: Premium Channels on Hulu

Subscription services would be a brilliant way to chase those quarters, indeed. Perhaps it could even convince cable-only paid channels like HBO and Showtime to get on board with the venture. They've already tentatively given iTunes a shot, but still seem reluctant to share current episodes in a timely fashion on that service. The reason for the networks' timidity is because their iTunes revenue simply doesn't compare to their cable TV subscription offerings or even their DVD sales. (Ironically, that's probably due to the fact that they don't offer current programs via iTunes!). Instead, they would rather entice consumers to subscribe by tempting them with their backcatalog of programming.

However, if the situation was to change and consumers could subscribe to these channels online for a comparable fee to what the companies generate through cable TV distribution, would they continue to put up such resistance? After all, money is money, who cares where it comes from?

These days, more and more consumers are pinching pennies by cancelling cable subscriptions thanks to the numerous alternatives available online. Obviously, premium channels are getting the boot, too. Imagine if they could have a chance to win back some of those penny-pinching former subscribers by way of an online subscription service. After all, what would you give for piecemeal plans that let you buy a 3-month pass to HBO instead of the all-or-nothing combo packages available via your cable TV provider?

Of course, all this is just wishful thinking on our part, but if Hulu does it right, the possibilities for their new TV distribution network are virtually endless.

In total, the average viewer watched about 135 video clips. While full-length shows are becoming more popular, it is still important to note that the average video is only 3.7 minutes long. Hulu, which focuses on full-length TV shows, also recorded its best month yet, with 457 million views.

Another Record-Breaking Month

June, according to comScore, already broke most records, but at that time, the company credited the surge to the large number of high-profile events (including the death of Michael Jackson and the elections in Iran). ComScore argues that TV viewers are turning to the Internet right now because most of the shows on TV are currently on summer hiatus. While this probably plays some role in this current growth in interest in online video, we would also argue that a lot of viewers are simply changing their viewing habits and have moved away from watching shows on traditional TV and cable networks. Instead, they are watching popular clips on YouTube and full-length shows on Hulu.