The shift to mass production of content incites strong interest and controversy. Demand Media, AOL and others are making bets on a content model that can be massively scaled and is driven by data rather than the gut feelings of experienced editors. As media companies look for ways to produce more content faster, they will need to decide whether they can compete as artisans or whether they need to start building factories of their own. Here are some resources to help you understand the landscape.

I’ve been in journalism for close to 30 years. As one would expect, my skills, the tools of the trade and the state of the industry itself have evolved dramatically over that time.

Newsrooms that once functioned under a cloud of cigarette smoke now work in a cloud computing environment. Writers who once tucked a reporter’s notebook in their back pocket now wield a digital voice recorder or a Flip camcorder. Editors who once redlined copy and haggled over how headlines matched the lead art now stress over Web analytics and keyword selection.

The Boston Herald has never been one to update just for the sake of updating. At the Herald (where I used to work) the general theory is, “If it’s good enough for Gutenberg, it’s good enough for us – and besides anything new would cost money.” So now the paper says it is “preparing” to move away from the Atex system it has been using for the last 27 years.

The Atlantic is looking to a new commenting system to help increase reader engagement on its newly redesigned website.

The Atlantic, a 150-plus-year-old magazine that publishes in print 10 times a year, covers culture, business and politics. The website redesign, launched earlier this week, is designed to better integrate magazine content, blogs, videos and other Web content around seven topic areas.

 The Columbia Journalism Review just released a report called "Magazines and Their Web Sites".  It's possible to draw a conclusion from the findings that magazine websites are more likely to be profitable if they put "web guys" in charge and don't worry much about things like copy editing or fact checking.  Well, you might think that if you confused correlation with causality.

There’s plenty of talk, most of it negative, about the “content factory” model that’s gaining traction on the Web. Media companies including Demand Media, Associated Content and About.com have created high-volume, commodity editorial businesses, relying on a network of freelancers who are compensated solely on how many page views their articles generate.

AOL is attempting to become a real web-based newspaper by hiring real experienced journalists and producing original content.

One question: Why?

For years now fools like me having been saying that in this new media world, “Content is king.” After all, good content will bring in the readers and drive bad content out! It’s a solid, logically defensible argument. However, so is “The laws of probability say The Cubs will play in a World Series someday.” Unfortunately experience has disproven both.