It's an example of the new approach taken by Demand Media and other venture-backed domain monetization plays trying to move the business beyond the parked page. The new model is to surround the ads with "content" but make sure the content is cheap and/or free (i.e. buying up businesses based on user-generated content) so it doesn't erode the PPC margins. Some of the other players in this niche have tons of generic names, and will eventually sell for far more than $300 million.

Webwonk

midas

There are thousands of (less successful) sites like this, all being goosed by adsense clickbot farms.

I realize many won't view this as "black hat" behaviour (after all, the advertiser must determine if they receive net value from the adwords system), but as an advertiser myself, I've always felt this was sleazy, and that google makes it very easy to "scam" their system.

I'd be interested to hear from adwords advertisers (not adsense publishers) who think otherwise.

dubdub

Call me a contrarian - guilty as charged - but I think that the revenues from internet advertising firms are badly exposed to the ad market cycle. I would argue that most bets on net advertising by marketing management within their clients are speculative at this point and that the jury is out.

More expensive money/recession could take a lot of the air out. So could any trend of internal analysis that determines net ads are ineffective sales drivers. At that point, you're going to see some of these "enterpreneurs" get scared and sell low to more long-term investors, and it's going to look less and less like the Wild West every time the circle comes around.

DeliciousNoise

Extra Bonus--you don't actually lose your initial investment!

TWebster

midas