hell
What is BuzzFeed, really?
11–20 of 73 posts
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#12This article doesn't incorporate yesterday's news that BuzzFeed has missed revenue targets this year, and is forecasted to miss revenue targets next year: http://nymag.com/following/2016/04/buzzfeed-halves-revenue-t... This is even after a pivot to video-content like all the major players in the industry are doing, which was done because BuzzFeed's current model, the one praised in this post, is not sustainable . The…
People are bored with it, and other clickbait-style sites.
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#13Everyone always complains about the cat gifs and listicles. No one ever praises the Zenefits exposé or leaking John McCain's running mate.
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#14This article doesn't incorporate yesterday's news that BuzzFeed has missed revenue targets this year, and is forecasted to miss revenue targets next year: http://nymag.com/following/2016/04/buzzfeed-halves-revenue-t... This is even after a pivot to video-content like all the major players in the industry are doing, which was done because BuzzFeed's current model, the one praised in this post, is not sustainable . The…
I'm wondering what really lead to such a huge miss. Whether it was just an incompetent estimate or what. Guide down is kinda crazy too.
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#15Everyone always complains about the cat gifs and listicles. No one ever praises the Zenefits exposé or leaking John McCain's running mate.
Build a thousands bridges...
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#16Omits one of the most interesting facts about BuzzFeed: it was started by a member of MIT's Media Lab [0]. It all made sense once I started viewing it as the result of research into content virality. Internally I think of it more like a "profitable social/cultural experiment" than "media company". [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/business/media/at-buzzfeed...
Huh, didn't even know this. So this is why BuzzFeed comes across as ADD in website form...
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#17I think the idea of complex algorithms is overplayed. For instance, ViralNova.com was/is a click-baity site very similar to BuzzFeed.
It was started by a single hacker like most of us here on this forum, with 2 part-time writers. Initially it was just a wordpress blog, that he later turned into a custom CMS because wordpress is so inefficient and kept crashing when he had spikes in traffic. Scott (founder) sold it in 18 months for somewhere around 80 Million $.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/zealot-media-buys-scott-delon...
> For a while, ViralNova was a one-man startup run entirely by DeLong and two freelance writers. Together they were able to grow their website to Buzzfeed's size and scale — about 100 million monthly readers
Doesn't this mean that BuzzFeed has too much "fat" ( in terms of employees) that cuts into their profits?
Thoughts?
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#18I've always explained it like the digital equivalent of those trash magazines at grocery store checkout stands. It's not for everyone, but it works for some.
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#19This article doesn't incorporate yesterday's news that BuzzFeed has missed revenue targets this year, and is forecasted to miss revenue targets next year: http://nymag.com/following/2016/04/buzzfeed-halves-revenue-t... This is even after a pivot to video-content like all the major players in the industry are doing, which was done because BuzzFeed's current model, the one praised in this post, is not sustainable . The…
People are bored with it, and other clickbait-style sites.
Based on the number of links she sends me,my wife isn't bored with it yet.
Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hid it a couple of years ago and I was actually recently surprised it still exists; I never see their links anywhere.
That has more to do with Facebook's content algorithm than anything.
Distribution: No one actually visits our site to read it, we are reliant on third parties. At least 50% of our users come from Facebook, which helps mask if the other sources are even profitable by themselves.
Content: We publish content on other platforms which will slowly drain our visibility if they do too well.
Audience: We were in front of the curve and road it at its peak when Facebook opened up their newsfeed to content.
Technology: When one of our spam articles does really well with organic traffic, we spend a bunch of money to pay to promote it on the most visible channels.
As Facebook gave and took away Zynga's free traffic, so goes Buzzfeed's traffic.