How much do photographers need to fear this company?

We wrote about Demand Media  a few months ago. The New York Times has published an article about the company that’s changing the way media content is created. With return on investment for the creation of generic content declining fast it’s important to watch this company and its similars. Like people in the interview it is then time to decide to fight (probably futile), ignore (It has over $200 million in revenues) or join (be prepared to work hard) this company. The other option to consider is to see if as a creator you truly have a unique, irreplicable skill that will not be taken over by ‘content mills. Here’s what one Demand Media contributor had to say:

I heard from many of them. Andria Krewson, 49, freelancer and consultant in Charlotte, spent 27 years in journalism, 23 of them at The Charlotte Observer  before she was laid off of her job as a design team leader last April.“In a way, it is liberating, once you get over the anger and sadness of losing your job in a profession you love, to find out that you have a place that will pay you for doing something you are good at, something that isn’t Wal-Mart,” she said. “The pay part is difficult, but right now the price of a lot of what we do seems to be free.”

Dismissing the company for low quality content may be a dangerous route. Demand Media says:

“There is a broad misunderstanding of what we do, that we take information from anywhere, when in fact we vet all our contributors, accept only half of them, and the people who work with us are thrilled because there is such a lack of opportunity everywhere else,” he said. via The Media Equation – The Future of Content – Cheap and Plentiful – NYTimes.com.

In fact, while what they say matter, what the market does is more significant. Demand Media generates 20.ooo articles or video’s every 5 days and is a huge contributor of YouTube videos. Low quality or not, someone is consuming it. With the hopes of the Stock Photography focussed to some extend on video, is this realistic? Unless the market for more difficult to replicate video content truly returns the investment it will be difficult to keep up with the sheer quantity of subjects that are allready being covered every minute of the day by Demand Media.