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At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

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Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#11

Post by Larrikin »

wmeredith wrote: post #8
flanbiscuit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day I was listening to an episode of Radiolab[1] (an NPR podcast) and I was surprised to hear they were collaborating with Buzzfeed. For the most part I still think of them as a listicles site but I guess they are trying to break into more serious journalism. 1. http://www.radiolab.org/story/60-words/

They've been doing serious journalism for a few years now. They use their clickbait nonsense to fund it. Here's a short article I wrote about it earlier this year: https://medium.com/@wwmeredith/10-reasons-not-to-write-off-b... I don't write regularly, but I've had this conversation with so many of my friends and colleagues that I decided to put it down somewhere. The basic gist is that the old newspapers funded deep…

They should rebrand their serious journalism. I know about it, and know they sometimes produce important work, but I never read their articles unless another organization reports on it as being valuable. There's too much risk of getting a waste of time currently.

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#12

Post by Moto7451 »

manachar wrote: post #10
paul7986 wrote: post #5

Buzzfeed should also open restaurants and or at least license “Tasty,” to a restaurant juggernaut company so they can create Tasty restaurants. It could be the first social media menu driven restaurant where the most liked Tasty videos/dishes establish the menu. I mean I don't cook, but constantly salivate over their videos.

Their Tasty content is social media gold (well produced food "porn"). It's highly viral and well liked by many people. It's weird to me that you're getting downvotes for suggesting that Buzzfeed take this content and do more with it. I may personally hate the idea of social media popularity being used to dictate the content of a menu, but I suspect there's a kernel of a great idea there. After all, this is essentiall…

Yup, Tasty videos are a hit. They're one of the few parts of social media I actually enjoy. I will sometimes log on Facebook just to see if anyone has shared a new one.

If the doubters want to see their reach, just see how many people have taken the time to create their own parody videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMPaIgVeCT0

Tasty itself is in a few different languages and regions, so to the GP's point, it clearly has some brand power and "Tasty Cafe" or a concept along those lines could work.

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#13

Post by kafkaesq »

dghughes wrote: post #6

I really hope not. Buzzfeed Canada is terrible a slimy tabloid organization I couldn't imagine in the 80s The National Enquirer starting a cable TV channel. Maybe the US version of Buzzfeed is different.

Buzzfeed Canada is terrible a slimy tabloid organization

I don't doubt this necessarily, but could you provide a quick recap? As in, did they create a slimy tabloid site from scratch? Or did they, like, buy some site that was already slimy, and just continue trudging along in the path of sliminess?

Coz like "we needz the ad revenue from the slimy stuff to bankroll our dalliance with serious journalism", and all that.

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#14

Post by overcast »

manachar wrote: post #10
paul7986 wrote: post #5

Buzzfeed should also open restaurants and or at least license “Tasty,” to a restaurant juggernaut company so they can create Tasty restaurants. It could be the first social media menu driven restaurant where the most liked Tasty videos/dishes establish the menu. I mean I don't cook, but constantly salivate over their videos.

Their Tasty content is social media gold (well produced food "porn"). It's highly viral and well liked by many people. It's weird to me that you're getting downvotes for suggesting that Buzzfeed take this content and do more with it. I may personally hate the idea of social media popularity being used to dictate the content of a menu, but I suspect there's a kernel of a great idea there. After all, this is essentiall…

They've been known to steal a ton of their recipes from other people, without acknowledging them.

https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz...

Also, there is a reason we have an executive chef developing menus. Ever heard of too many cooks spoiling the soup? That, and the general population has shit taste in everything from food, to entertainment. Having the children of buzzfeed deciding this, will end up with a menu full of macaroni and cheese, and pizza logs.

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#15

Post by manachar »

overcast wrote: post #14
manachar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their Tasty content is social media gold (well produced food "porn"). It's highly viral and well liked by many people. It's weird to me that you're getting downvotes for suggesting that Buzzfeed take this content and do more with it. I may personally hate the idea of social media popularity being used to dictate the content of a menu, but I suspect there's a kernel of a great idea there. After all, this is essentiall…

They've been known to steal a ton of their recipes from other people, without acknowledging them. https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz... Also, there is a reason we have an executive chef developing menus. Ever heard of too many cooks spoiling the soup? That, and the general population has shit taste in everything from food, to entertainment. Having the children of buzzfeed deciding this, will…

Can an executive chef be replaced with enough data? I'm inclined to believe so.

Also, recipes are not copyrightable or otherwise able to be locked up in some form of intellectual property. Thankfully. I would hate to see a world where I could only buy chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookie recipes from Nestle.

Of course, it would be nice if they add attribution as needed, but tough to prove for something like this (bacon weave being a fairly common new fangled technique applied to everything from tacos to ice cream).

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#16

Post by pulisse »

Larrikin wrote: post #11
wmeredith wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been doing serious journalism for a few years now. They use their clickbait nonsense to fund it. Here's a short article I wrote about it earlier this year: https://medium.com/@wwmeredith/10-reasons-not-to-write-off-b... I don't write regularly, but I've had this conversation with so many of my friends and colleagues that I decided to put it down somewhere. The basic gist is that the old newspapers funded deep…

They should rebrand their serious journalism. I know about it, and know they sometimes produce important work, but I never read their articles unless another organization reports on it as being valuable. There's too much risk of getting a waste of time currently.

Under what circumstances do you update your priors?

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#17

Post by astura »

overcast wrote: post #14
manachar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their Tasty content is social media gold (well produced food "porn"). It's highly viral and well liked by many people. It's weird to me that you're getting downvotes for suggesting that Buzzfeed take this content and do more with it. I may personally hate the idea of social media popularity being used to dictate the content of a menu, but I suspect there's a kernel of a great idea there. After all, this is essentiall…

They've been known to steal a ton of their recipes from other people, without acknowledging them. https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz... Also, there is a reason we have an executive chef developing menus. Ever heard of too many cooks spoiling the soup? That, and the general population has shit taste in everything from food, to entertainment. Having the children of buzzfeed deciding this, will…

Recipes are not copyrightable so there's no such thing as "stealing" them. They are passed around freely without attribution all over the virtual as well as physical world, that's not uncommon. It would be nice if BuzzFeed could cite where they got the recipe but it's not strictly required and they don't know of where they got it was the original source or not. Anyways, give me a break, bacon weaves are hardly a unique idea. In fact, they are really overdone.

Most internet recipes are made by food bloggers and grandmas, not executive chefs.

"Too many cooks spoil the soup" doesn't mean "most people can't make good recipes."

Tasty existing doesn't preclude pretentiousrecipes.com so I'm not sure I understand that criticism.

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#18

Post by astura »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #7
dghughes wrote: post #6

I really hope not. Buzzfeed Canada is terrible a slimy tabloid organization I couldn't imagine in the 80s The National Enquirer starting a cable TV channel. Maybe the US version of Buzzfeed is different.

One day I was listening to an episode of Radiolab[1] (an NPR podcast) and I was surprised to hear they were collaborating with Buzzfeed. For the most part I still think of them as a listicles site but I guess they are trying to break into more serious journalism. 1. http://www.radiolab.org/story/60-words/

They have been doing serious journalism for quite a while and have proven themselves very capable of it.

Here's stuff that's been submitted to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=buzzfeed.com

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#19

Post by mason55 »

overcast wrote: post #14
manachar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their Tasty content is social media gold (well produced food "porn"). It's highly viral and well liked by many people. It's weird to me that you're getting downvotes for suggesting that Buzzfeed take this content and do more with it. I may personally hate the idea of social media popularity being used to dictate the content of a menu, but I suspect there's a kernel of a great idea there. After all, this is essentiall…

They've been known to steal a ton of their recipes from other people, without acknowledging them. https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz... Also, there is a reason we have an executive chef developing menus. Ever heard of too many cooks spoiling the soup? That, and the general population has shit taste in everything from food, to entertainment. Having the children of buzzfeed deciding this, will…

The key to a successful BuzzFeed restaurant would be lots of different restaurants, each catering to a different market segment.

It’s like the old story about how Prego discovered that you can’t just make one sauce everyone loves, you make a chunky and a smooth and a meaty and meet the needs of each different set of tastes. Just like how Netflix doesn’t have a single hit show, they hit all the different demos.

Re: At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television

#20

Post by jonez450 »

teej wrote: post #4

One of the major drivers of this new age in BuzzFeed has been driven by Ze Frank[0] of all people. He ushered in an era of "viral" content before that was even a thing. I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of how he has helped transform them into more of a original content company. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze_Frank

That's a shame - I used to like Ze Frank a decade ago when he had that 1 year long series. Now he's literally promoting cancer.
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