Taboola Gets $15M, Meteor Video is Hot, Facebook’s Content Farm Problem

The Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Taboola Garners $15 Million for Video Engine

Paid Content’s Laura Hazard Owen writes that Taboola, a video recommendation engine, has received $15 million in funding.

The site now has $35 million in total. Taboola is used by CNN and Bloomberg and is located in New York, with a data center in Israel. It works with 1,000 websites and boasts 1.5 billion recommendations per day.

Meteor Videos Getting Massive Hits Online

According to the New York Times, the videos of the meteor hitting Siberia are receiving millions of hits online.

One uploaded by Russia Today, a cable channel, have seen more than 26 million hits. Along with that one and homemade videos, collectively the views have totaled 138 million. More than 400 videos of it have been uploaded, though some of them might be duplicates, says online measurement company Visible Measures.

Social Content Farming on Facebook

Kevin Morris, via the Daily Dot and Mashable, discusses how content farming is coming to Facebook.

He says that this has been happening since Google cut them out. One such content farm is Egypt-based Stylish Eve, which has Facebook accounts like “Hells” and “Home Decorating” and boasts more than five million subscribers. Morris says, “Content spam has nothing to do with people. More and more, however, it has everything to do with Facebook.”

Becoming a Champion at Content Marketing

Elmo Stoop of Business2Community writes about how content marketers can become champions in 2013. It’s not enough to just have the necessary basics like a company blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and/or Pinterest account.

Businesses need to “create content around what makes you the best and spread the word – let that be the centerpiece of your content strategy.”

They also need the right tools in place, such as Ubersuggest, which is a keyword ideas tool, SocialBro, which helps manage and analyze Twitter accounts, and Outbrain, a content amplification platform.

Second Bankruptcy for Reader’s Digest 

The Telegraph reports that Reader’s Digest has filed for bankruptcy for the second time in the past four years.

RDA Holdings, which owns the magazine, reported $1.1 billion in assets and $1.2 billion in liabilities. RDA says it is going to “use the bankruptcy to finalize an agreement with its creditors to reduce its debt and to focus on growing the online sales of its 75 magazines.”

Content Marketing on SlideShare

Roger C. Parker of Content Marketing Institute writes about how marketers can use SlideShare for content purposes throughout the year.

He says they can create how-to-buy information, which will show prospects how to make informed buying decisions. They can put out a “mistakes to avoid” slideshow, or touch upon trends occurring in the field.

What Freelance Clients Want

Make a Living Writing covers what freelance clients really want from their writers. 

There is no sure thing, because all writing gigs are unique in their own way. Every client offers something different and writers are at different places in their careers. Writers must set their own standards for contracts, pay, and deadlines because there are no set guidelines to follow.