Demand Media Launches Talent and Expert Network

NEW YORK, NY & SANTA MONICA, Calif. – June 8, 2010 –Demand Media™, a leading content and social media company, announced today the beta launch of its Talent & Expert Network during New York City’s third annual Internet Week. This new role and function within its content creation platform expands Demand Media’s mission of publishing high quality content at scale.  Authentic and entertaining personalities will be integrated in the company’s original, rights-cleared articles and videos and expanded to new episodic programming and branded entertainment content across hundreds of categories.

Demand Media’s content studio already harnesses the creativity of an international community of qualified freelance writers, editors, and filmmakers to publish engaging content to its properties such as eHow.com and LIVESTRONG.COM℠ as well as partners like USA Today and YouTube.

“At YouTube we recently announced the site has exceeded over two billion views a day. With such a large, global audience, we value partners like Demand Media who can produce high quality, original content at incredible scale,” said Kevin Yen, Director of Strategic Partnerships at YouTube.  “We are excited to work with Demand Media as they continue to innovate and expand their platform to accelerate the growth of new media’s emerging creative class of talent.”

“In the last 25 years an entirely new generation of creative talent was discovered and made famous through the medium of cable television. Yet, as audiences and advertisers have embraced online, established talent are searching to find the right opportunities in this new medium,” said Richard Rosenblatt, chairman and CEO of Demand Media. “We built our publishing platform to produce quality content at scale, and we are now doing the same for talent discovery. We can deliver large audiences who desire to be informed and entertained, using a platform that allows talent to build their brand.”

One recent addition to the Talent & Expert Network is Rolf Potts, author of “Vagabonding” and former Travel Channel host.  Potts recently worked with Demand Media on the premium video series “Two-Minute Travel Tips” for USA Today’s new Travel Tips website. Along the way, he discovered working with Demand Media would provide an invaluable opportunity to raise his profile and reach an audience of millions.

Potts and Demand Media are already in pre-production on two additional projects which will appear on Demand Media’s owned and operated network of media properties later this year.

The Demand Media content creation model has received much attention in a short period of time, due in part to its suite of unique offerings and a strict editorial review process. Each piece of content is editorially selected based on the unique voice of Demand Media’s owned and operated media properties and partner sites that together reach more than 80 million people every month.

“We’ve grown our media properties tremendously over the past few years in large part by leveraging credible experts and engaging talent to inform and entertain audiences,” said Larry Fitzgibbon, executive vice president of Demand Media’s Properties which are currently ranked #16 on comScore’s list of top U.S. web properties. “By formalizing our Talent and Expert Network, we intend to discover and create new opportunities for our talent and engage our audience with smart, entertaining and informative content”.

About Demand Media

Demand Media is a leading online media company that informs, entertains and connects millions of people every day. Through a portfolio of vertical web properties reaching more than 80 million monthly visitors, a global network of digital partners, and a breakthrough content studio, Demand Media publishes what the world wants to know and share. Founded in 2006, Demand Media is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with offices in Bellevue, WA, Austin, TX, New York, NY and London, UK. For more information visit: www.demandmedia.com

© 2010 Demand Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

LIVESTRONG is a trademark and/or registered trademark of the Lance Armstrong Foundation in the United States and/or other countries.

Demand Media and eHow.com are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Demand Media, Inc in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.