Former MySpace chairman to buy "how-to" Web site

By Kenneth Li

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A company founded by the ex-chairman of social network MySpace plans to announce on Tuesday it has purchased online video site ExpertVillage.com to bolster its archive of "how-to" information on the Internet.

Financial terms of the purchase by privately owned Demand Media were not disclosed.

ExpertVillage, founded last year, operates a site with about 17,000 videos that run one to three minutes each on everything from "How to Reduce Jet Lag" to pet-grooming tips. The company said it was already one of the top 10 channels on Google Inc.'s YouTube online video sharing site.

How-to videos represent some of the most-sought-after content on search engines, Forrester analyst Charlene Li said. "It's an immediate need."

ExpertVillage matches professional and amateur filmmakers with projects of interest to Web audiences. Topics are created from a proprietary algorithm that sifts through data related to what users search on the Web, Demand Media founder Richard Rosenblatt said in an interview.

Filmmakers agree to produce how-to films, such as one on belly-dancing, for example, and they are paid by the site for them. ExpertVillage retains the copyright.

"We intend on increasing the scale of ExpertVillage's existing business and expanding into new content areas," Rosenblatt said.

The site's videos will be made available to Demand Media's other properties including eHow Inc., a text how-to site. Videos will also be available to regular users looking to post clips on their own social network sites.