Growing Demand Blog

Our company and many of our brands are starting to become very well known in Europe, and the release of our Pluck 4 platform there is introducing even more European customers to our superior social media solutions.  Our UK-based team has been doing an amazing job building new European partnerships, and they’ve been clamoring for more.  So, in line with the core strategy we actively recommend for our customers – fueling growth by building social bridges – I recently crossed the Atlantic to deliver the Demand Media story there myself.

In London earlier this month, I spoke at the annual Association of Online Publishers Digital Publishing Summit.  The event gathered industry leaders from around Europe and the world to discuss the forces of change currently facing online media, including the big challenges we think about every day – the emergence of new platforms and new competitors, fragmentation of audiences, and the changing economics of content.  Much of the event focused on a “paid content” model, catalyzed by Rupert Murdoch’s recent announcement that his News Corp properties would begin charging for online content (again).  It seems strange to me that it hasn’t yet dawned on big media companies that you should only generate content if it makes money.  That’s the elegantly simple proposition of Demand Studios: create compelling content that is ROI driven.  Our model is advertising-supported and already succeeding; it remains to be seen whether the “paid content” approach fares as well.

I also had an opportunity to attend and present at Outsell’s “Signature Event” in Dublin, where I met Scott Parazynski, a former NASA astronaut who holds the distinction of being the only human being ever to travel to outer space and summit Mount Everest.   Scott spoke at dinner Sunday night (with a great slide show) and his stories were incredible, but after my presentation on Monday, he came over to congratulate ME on Demand Media’s accomplishments – wow!  I was blown away.

As I thought about Scott’s adventures, I realized that our travels as a company have been pretty impressive too – and not just in light of my whirlwind tour of Europe.  We’ve accomplished a lot in just a few short years.  We’ve assembled more than 500 incredibly talented people.  We make money every day.  But most importantly, we’ve created an opportunity for ourselves that happens only once or twice in a generation – the opportunity to profoundly change the media business.  And for us here at Demand Media, that is our Everest.