In an office in Santa Monica, wedged between downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, the future of the media industry is being drawn up.
Demand Media is a company created specifically for the Google Age. It tracks the queries entered into search engines to find out what users are interested in, then hires freelance writers at rock-bottom rates to rush out articles to meet the need.
To make sure these articles appear high up in the results when similar searches are done in future, it uses the techniques of search engine optimisation – the term given to the art of designing a web page so that it is accorded a higher ranking by Google's algorithm. It also makes money by displaying adverts alongside its articles from Google's advertising system.