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What is BuzzFeed, really?

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Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#51

Post by kough »

steveklabnik wrote: post #24
kough wrote: post #3

Omits 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...

See also http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/issues/96w/96w_perett... , note the author. Negations was a humanities journal.

Very interesting -- thanks for the pointer

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#52

Post by Reedx »

CameronBanga wrote: post #43
bduerst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Alexa, Buzzfeed has been dropping in daily pageviews and global ranking [1]. That's synonymous with people getting, bored, right? http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/buzzfeed.com

Or everyone else is just stealing the playbook, and consumers really don't care where the content comes from. Readers of clickbait presumably get to such pages from social shares aimed to grab a click, and probably have no loyalty to the site producing the clickbait.

> probably have no loyalty to the site producing the clickbait

I think that's spot on. There's more competition in clickbait and the strategy ultimately doesn't result in any sort of loyalty. They are there for the headline, quickly consume what little content there is and close the tab.

It's a process of finding a new "weird trick" and then overuse it until people get sick of seeing it. Then find a new hook and repeat the process ad infinitum.

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#53

Post by [deleted] »

djloche wrote: post #48
bduerst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Alexa, Buzzfeed has been dropping in daily pageviews and global ranking [1]. That's synonymous with people getting, bored, right? http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/buzzfeed.com

Based on the original article, their strategy has become sponsored content across 30+ platforms. Their site is only 1 part of this.

[deleted]

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#54

Post by noir_lord »

monknomo wrote: post #22
balls187 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build a thousands bridges...

In Buzzfeeds case it's more like "fuck a thousand goats, but do they remember the one bridge?"

Surely you mean "17 species of Bovidae we fucked, You'll never guess what happened next".

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#55

Post by imjk »

marknutter wrote: post #45
imjk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I'll start by saying that, personally, I'd rather run a ViralNova than a Buzzfeed. However, to answer your question, the reason that a company like Buzzfeed would add that many more employees is because of the idea that the economies of scale would work in its favor. Let's make up some numbers and say with two employees, Viral Nova was doing $20MM. The idea is that with 100 employees, they could potentially gr…

Which completely ignores the fact that after a certain point as you add headcount you often deteriorate productivity and communication.

Perhaps the job is to find that point, and they found it. Or perhaps they're nowhere near that point and the management team just did a shitty job scaling the business.

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#56

Post by Chinjut »

kough wrote: post #3

Omits 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...

Who was also a co-founder of The Huffington Post and, most interestingly to me, is the brother of comedian Chelsea Peretti.

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#58

Post by akgerber »

'“Capitalism, Peretti concluded, needs to be constantly producing identities for peoples if the system is to survive,” Matthews writes. “And ten years later, he built a factory to fill that precise need.

Matthews later reached out to Peretti to ask if he felt that Buzzfeed embodies the principles outlined in Peretti’s “Capitalism and Schizophrenia.” Peretti simply responded “lol.”'

-- http://www.critical-theory.com/buzzfeed-founder-responds-to-...

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#59

Post by cha5m »

kough wrote: post #3

Omits 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...

An experiment? Hardly. At least certainly not any more.

They use data to deliver their cancerous content, just in the same way coke uses AB flavor testing to determine what the most addictive coke formula is.

Calling them "scientists" performing "experiments" seems far too dignified.

Re: What is BuzzFeed, really?

#60

Post by cha5m »

sparkzilla wrote: post #12
minimaxir wrote: post #2

This 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.

There will always be an audience for clickbait. There must be other factors at play.
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