Chief executive of Demand Media—Richard Rosenblatt, basked in the spotlight as digital media cognoscenti and bankers gathered round him at New York’s Empire Hotel to toast his four-year old company’s progress.
Though it was only founded in 2006, Demand is already planning an initial public offering valuing it at about $1.5, which is based on a belief that it has discovered a low-cost but immensely profitable new model for online media. The secrete ingrediant of Demand is a set of algorithms that analyses search engine data and traffic logs for topics to ientify keywords for which advertisers are likely to pay.
The topics are fed to a website and selected by 8000 freelancers to base stories or videos on.