Last Wednesday, I met with an executive from Demand Media, a company that generates content based on popular Web searches and other data. Since then, I’ve spent about 20 hours reading past articles, calling people for background, doing interviews, writing my column, and working on the copy with editors Sunday afternoon.

At Demand’s current pay rate, I’d be making almost a buck an hour.

Never heard of Demand? You’ve probably seen its products. The company has five times more video on YouTube than any other single source and over one million original articles floating around the Web with an endless array of how-to and what-the-heck instructionals on everything from how to make your own bobblehead doll to bobbing for apples.

According to the company, its YouTube videos are streamed 2.5 million times daily. And in those five days it took me to write this column, the company published 20,000 new articles or videos about losing weight, learning new tricks on a skateboard or tips for job hunting.

Demand, which has $355 million in backing, was co-founded in 2006 by Richard Rosenblatt, who was the head of Intermix, the birthplace of MySpace, and by Shawn Colo, who has a background in private equity investments. The company lives up to its name, with the hive mind of the Web serving as an assignment editor.