Basically someone goes out and finds some interesting content and rips it off. They register a wordpress/blogger account and throw all the content up along with some google ads. You submit it to Reddit/Hacker News/Digg/Fark.com whatever and drive traffic to it.
I will admit that they've started to get a little more courteous at least-they're 'attributing' the source material sometimes so they're not outright stealing the content.
According to the article, 10-15 years to become functional, and since they're alive, they can last for centuries (some of them are 500 years old). Obviously, they're not for everyone!
I posted about Arboscultores for things like chairs, doors and houses about 2 weeks ago. Might be relevant to this discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=761129
