Content: Mass Produced Versus Real Content — What’s the Difference?

The image above is from The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad-only publication.

For our purposes, let’s call the content in The Daily “real” content, as opposed to mass-produced content as generated by companies like Demand Media, and AOL.

This article, Can Rupert Murdoch’s punt on The Daily really beat the cut-price content makers? Kohler reports on the scary amounts of content the content factories produce:

“The ‘AOL Way’ is to increase ‘content production’ from 33,661 ‘pieces of content’ to 55,000 over the next three months and to decrease the average cost per ‘piece of content’ from $99 to $84 while increasing the median page views per article from 1,512 to 7000. This will take the average gross margin from 35 to 50%.”

Read the article; it’s interesting, with lots of intriguing numbers. Including this one: “Apparently their freelancers are churning out up to 10 items a day – a total of, say, 50,000 items a week“. The emphasis is mine… Amazing, ten items per day, per freelancer, and 50,000 pieces of content per week.

Who’s reading all this? Someone is, of course, but I doubt whether they’re reading as much as glancing at it.

I downloaded The Daily app a couple of days ago, and wasn’t sure what to expect. So far, I like it. Good content, including images, videos, audio and crossword puzzles too… what’s not to like?

I don’t know whether I’ll subscribe however. I’m a news junkie, and I’ve got too much to read already. It depends on the quality of the stories in The Daily over the next couple of weeks. (It’s free for two weeks.) If it turns out that I spend more time reading The Daily than I do other news sources, then I will.

So what’s the difference between mass produced, and real content?

I consider The Daily real content. As far as I’m concerned, real content is material someone went to a little trouble to produce, and that has something new to say.

Does that mean that mass produced content can’t be real? Not necessarily. It depends on the piece of content. Some of the articles on About.com are good, for example.

I’d love your take on this — share your thoughts in the Comments. What’s the difference between mass produced and real content?

Apropos of content factories, read Danny Sullivan’s The New York Times, Demand Media Edition, his mockup is hilarious. He says:

One of the secrets to Demand Media’s success is paying close attention to what people are searching for and then writing articles to serve to order, especially articles it think [sic] will generate lots of ad revenue.

Discover Blogging, the Freelancers’ Nirvana

What’s a blog? A blog is a fantastic way to make BIG money as a freelance writer.

How much money? Several bloggers I know are making between $15,000 and $20,000 dollars A MONTH. Not bad pocket change.

Find out how to blog with the blogging best-seller “Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger — in your PJs, if you want”. It’s my complete new ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well.

Discover blogging today.

Become an article maestro, and watch your income soar

One of the most exciting and lucrative writing careers you can develop is also the simplest to start, for both new, and established writers.

Just write articles. Write for newspapers, magazines, and the Web.

I’ve compiled three of my article writing guides into a superbly effective package for you. This package will inspire and motivate you, and shows you exactly what you need to do.

Become an article maestro today.