Leaf Group

Demand Media was co-founded in May 2006 by Richard Rosenblatt and Shawn Colo. Rosenblatt was chief executive officer of Intermix Media and Chairman of MySpace.com. Colo is a financial acquisition specialist. He worked for 10 years in the private equity industry as a principal with Spectrum Equity Investors, specializing in media and communications companies. In June 2007, Demand Media hired Charles Hilliard, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker, NetZero/United Online senior executive and initial public offering (IPO) specialist, as its president and chief financial officer and acquired Byron Reese's how-to website, ExpertVillage.com of Austin, Texas, for about $20 million. Reese became the company's chief innovation officer and developed the algorithm that the company uses to identify topics with high advertising potential.

In 2007, Demand Media raised more than $355 million in financing over its first two years from investors such as Oak Investment Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors, Generation Partners and Goldman Sachs.

By 2008, Demand Media had acquired more than 30 domain-name portfolios and owned 65 destination websites. It said that its 2009 revenue was nearly $200 million, but it was later reported that the company had never been profitable. In July 2008, it was reported that Yahoo! was interested in buying Demand Media for between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. Sources close to both companies said Yahoo! executives were interested in Demand Media's advertising impressions and its ability to create niche social networks for media sites. Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt later said that the company was not for sale. It was reported that Rosenblatt wanted a price closer to $3 billion for Demand Media.

In August, 2014, Demand Media acquired online art-gallery marketplace Saatchi Art and named the startup's top executive, Sean Moriarty, as the new CEO of Demand Media Inc.

The company changed its name to Leaf Group in 2016.

On June 10, 2021, Leaf announced shareholders had approved an acquisition by Graham Holdings for $8.50 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $323 million.

Offerings

Content & Media

Demand Media's Content & Media service offering includes leading online properties that publish content in text, video, photography, and designed visual formats. This content is published across several key categories on eHow.com. It also owns and operates LEAFtv, a lifestyle resource for women that produces short-form how-to videos. Additionally, its studioD business develops and executes content marketing strategies, and creates custom content for third-party brands, agencies and publishers.

Marketplaces

Through its Marketplace service offering, Demand Media operates two art and design marketplaces where one can market and sell artworks or designs printed on a variety of products.

Society6.com, which it acquired in June 2013, provides an online commerce platform to sell images or designs on consumer products.

SaatchiArt.com, which it acquired in August 2014, is an online art gallery for the purpose of selling works.

Since 2006, Demand Media has acquired a collection of sites and relaunched them with social networking features and video capabilities. In the company's first six months, it made nine acquisitions, including the purchase of registrars eNom and BulkRegister. On November 6, 2008, Shawn Colo, head of Demand Media mergers and acquisitions, said the company would continue to buy niche, well-trafficked sites because the company was profitable and still had "a lot of cash in the bank".

In 2008, Demand Media acquired Pluck, a company providing social networking and commenting solutions to other websites, for a reported $75 million in cash. IndieClick and RSS Graffiti were acquired in August 2011. Name.com, a domain name registrar, was acquired on January 7, 2013. Society6 was acquired on June 25, 2013. Saatchi Online was acquired on August 11, 2014.

In August 2014, Demand Media announced it had successfully separated from Rightside Group, Ltd. and its brands eNom, Name.com and online auction site NameJet. As a result of the separation, Demand Media is no longer a provider of domain name services.

In April 2016, Demand Media announced the sale of its brand, Cracked.com, to E.W. Scripps. In May 2016, Demand Media announced the sale of its brand trails.com to LoveToKnow Corp. (owned by Howard Love).

Criticism

Demand Media has attracted criticism for being one of the largest buyers of articles and videos, often commissioning low-quality articles to cut costs in an effort to mass-produce articles and videos to appear highly in Google search results, purchasing thousands of search-engine-driven content from low-paid freelancers to use on its websites to attract advertisers, such as Israeli startup Simpli (now owned by Google's AdSense).

Demand Media has also been criticized for its methods of accounting, such as capitalizing the costs of content and amortizing them over five years, giving them the appearance of profitability.