Demand Media to Change Its Name to Leaf Group

0

Demand Media is turning over a new leaf.

The media and e-commerce holding company announced on Friday that it will change its name to Leaf Group, effective Nov. 9. Demand Media purchased Leaf.tv last year, which is a women’s lifestyle video content creator.

Despite some recent acquisitions, Demand Media has sold off a number of its hallmark properties in recent years as part of an effort to distance itself from its reputation as a content farm and its reliance on advertising revenue. Gone are several of its former businesses, including arts and crafts website Creativebug, social media engagement tool CoverItLive, and domain registry Rightside.

The firm was bitten badly by its reputation as a content farm, an industry term for a publisher that cares more about editorial scale than quality with the goal of luring in web surfers and advertisers. After Google recalibrated its search engine formula in 2011 to partly reject cheap content, Demand Media’s market capitalization shrunk dramatically, from more than $2 billion to about $117 million today.

The company has refocused on its growing e-commerce properties, print seller Society 6 and fine art marketplace Saatchi Art. Its combined e-commerce revenue grew by 47 percent last year to $52.2 million and now represents 41 percent of its revenue.

Technology reporter Garrett Reim can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @garrettreim for the latest in L.A. tech news.

No posts to display