Axel Springer buys 88 percent stake in Business Insider
Cost $343 million
Axel Springer has acquired 88 percent of Business Insider at a cost of $343 million. This means the German media conglomerate, which…
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In the age of niche media, everyone still really wants to be mass
Be careful what you wish for
As doctoral student Frederik De Boer pointed out in a recent blog post on some of the new-media sites like BuzzFeed and Fusion, if you don’t focus on a specific market or target a specific kind of reader, you run the risk of blending in with everyone else
It’s not about quizzes and listicles — it’s about experimentation
Run, test and repeat
As Columbia Journalism School researcher Maxwell Foxman points out in a research paper, media companies could learn a lot from the game-playing approach that sites like BuzzFeed take towards their content
The viral content problem: Many people don’t care whether it’s true
I know, but I shared it anyway
Author and journalist Craig Silverman looks at the explosion of online hoaxes, rumors and misinformation all around us — but one of the most powerful factors behind this trend is that many people don’t care whether what they share is true or not
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Court backs NSA on internet spying as Obama ducks call for reform
Two steps back
It’s been a lousy week so far for opponents of U.S. spy tactics: a federal judge shut down a long-running challenge to the NSA’s mass collection…
Real-time brand tweeting is an art, not a science
Spoiler: McDonalds + Buzzfeed
As everyone knows, there’s a second kind of competition going on during the Super Bowl, and it has nothing to do with…
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BuzzFeed gets serious with editorial standards and ethics guide
Straighten up and fly right
In an attempt to hold what was once an experimental viral-content lab to higher standards of conduct, BuzzFeed has published a new comprehensive standards and ethical guidelines document that tells staff what they should and shouldn’t do
This is the year we find out whether new media can scale or not
Large bets are being placed
Investment funds and traditional media entities have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into new-media entities like Vice, BuzzFeed, Vox and Business Insider over the past six months, but will these risky bets on the future of media pay off?
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Snapchat hiring journalists to become its own publisher
The popular platisher trend
Not content to rely on major brands for its new media exploration section, Snapchat is also planning on making its own according…
How much work the NYT has to do on social sharing, in one chart
Sharing is caring
About half of all BuzzFeed articles that were shared on social networks were shared 1,000 times or more, compared with just 11 shares for half of the articles that the New York Times saw posted to services like Twitter and Facebook
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This Change.org petition response shows how much Uber has changed
One serving of Uber humble pie
Uber has just responded to a group of Change.org petitioners protesting Uber’s background check policies in India, following the alleged rape of a…
News flash for the NYT: You and BuzzFeed aren’t that different
Sharing is caring
In the process of talking about what her job entails, the audience development editor for the New York Times underestimates BuzzFeed and how much competition it is — and how it got there
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Customer Targeting: Beyond Demographics and “Likes”
Real-time data analytics and programmatic ad buying and selling are becoming more critical to brand marketers as they refocus more of their efforts from traditional TV channels to digital platforms.
Nick Denton says the traffic game is over, and BuzzFeed has won
Peace treaty in the works
In a memo to staff, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton says the site will no longer judge the value of posts purely on how much traffic they generate, and that when it comes to the readership wars, BuzzFeed has won
When is a media company also a tech company? It’s complicated
Tech isn't just about gadgets
When is a media company also a technology company? When the use of technology — not just for publishing, but for understanding how content flows and is discovered online — is at the core of what that company does
When content becomes a virus, the viral scientists ultimately win
So spend some time in the lab
Emerson Spartz started creating viral content websites when he was 12, and now he runs a company that specializes in understanding how content spreads, and why — something more media companies should pay attention to
The year in media: 12 reasons why we should be optimistic
Don't give up on us yet
It’s easy to focus on the negatives in media — the mistakes, the downsizing at traditional journalistic outlets, etc. — but there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the media landscape this year, and here are just a few of them
There’s never been a better time to run a niche media business
Felix Salmon is totally wrong
Turning a media site into a massive, multibillion-dollar property reaching hundreds of millions of readers isn’t the only route to success any more — starting and running a niche or targeted site has never been easier
Nick Denton unveils “the great unclenching” at Gawker Media
No longer dear leader
Gawker founder Nick Denton unveiled a management shakeup he referred to as “the great unclenching,” in which he will share power over the blog network with a management committee of seven, a change he hopes will help Gawker compete with BuzzFeed and Vox
Yes, newsrooms are shrinking — but journalism is growing
Not the trees, the forest
Layoffs at newspapers like the New York Times are no longer a surprise. But we should be careful not to assume that just because some papers are downsizing, journalism as a whole is in decline — because it’s growing faster than ever
Money is pouring into media, but will it find the value it seeks?
Vox Media has closed a financing round that values the company at almost $400 million, and BuzzFeed is valued at twice that level — but will the funds that made these bets see enough of a return to justify those numbers?
BuzzFeed says social rules and it is bigger than most TV networks
According to a recent presentation, BuzzFeed reaches more millennial video viewers than most of the major U.S. television networks, and it gets five times as much traffic from social as it does from search
If you’re worried about Uber and privacy, don’t forget Lyft and Sidecar
We should be levying Uber privacy questions at all the new transportation connection companies. Lyft, Sidecar, Flywheel, Curb, Hailo, and their ilk have similar technology and nearly identical use cases to Uber.
Leaked document suggests Uber wanted to “weaponize” taxi research
Someone leaked BuzzFeed an internal Uber document that outlines an investigative plan to “weaponize” facts. In this case, however, the target is the taxi industry and not journalists.
Uber: For better or worse, this is the way the media works now
The way the story around Uber’s behavior has emerged is another example of how much the media landscape has changed over the past couple of years, with CEOs and VCs tweeting and blogging and new-media entities like BuzzFeed driving the agenda
Report: Senior Uber exec threatened to dig up dirt on journalists
At a recent dinner, an Uber executive allegedly suggested that the company considered an unethical strategy to attack journalists who were critical of it.
Google’s ad server suffers global failure, causing millions of ads to disappear from web
An unusual glitch struck Google’s ad serving tool on Wednesday morning, causing blanks spaces to appear in place of advertisements on websites like BuzzFeed, Time, Forbes and VentureBeat. The outage means a loss of revenue for hundreds of publishers, and represents the rare failure of a key piece of internet plumbing.
BuzzFeed’s deal with Facebook to measure political sentiment has one major flaw
BuzzFeed has formed a partnership with Facebook that gives it access to the social network’s “sentiment analysis” data on millions of users — but Facebook’s algorithm is going to influence the thing that BuzzFeed is trying to measure in ways it can’t possibly know
Does BuzzFeed engage in clickbait? That depends on your definition
BuzzFeed strenuously denies that it engages in what some call “clickbait,” which the site defines as not following through on the promise of a headline — but that’s not the only definition for clickbait, and probably not even the most common one
Welcome to the murky world of social media marketing
The firm that implied it started the #AlexfromTarget meme now says it was just part of a chain reaction. So was this a naturally spreading viral phenomenon?
BuzzFeed expands its data team by acquiring company run by the co-founder of Bitly
BuzzFeed has already built a data-science team and named one of its chief scientists as publisher, and now it has acquired Torando Labs and made the founder — the co-founder and former CTO of Bitly — its VP of data engineering
Trust is a crucial aspect of journalism, but it’s a slippery concept and hard to measure
An essay by the head of Google News about the value of trust in journalism sparked a debate on Twitter about whether trust is a good way to think about how journalistic value is created, and if so how trust should be defined
Whisper’s problem: It wants to be both an anonymous app and a news entity at the same time
Whisper was slammed by The Guardian for its alleged tracking of individuals who use the anonymous app, but the concerns about privacy are just the symptom of a larger problem, which is that Whisper wants to be a news entity
BuzzFeed’s choice of publisher says a lot about how the site looks at media
BuzzFeed’s new publisher is not a veteran media executive or an MBA with a business background, but someone who specializes in looking at how data can influence the way that media is created and shared — a crucial skill for the current media economy
Scare stories about ad beacons don’t help us talk about the risks of digital surveillance
BuzzFeed got a lot of attention for a story about a secret network of location-tracking devices hidden in New York City phone booths — but the truth is a lot more mundane, and pumping up the hysteria doesn’t help the discussion of these technologies
As the article stated, many traditional outlets are viewing Twitter purely as a means to promote their content. What they seem to be overlooking is that Twitter is where stories often originate and develop (Ferguson, ISIS, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge etc). Paying attention to ‘social’ isn’t about giving people what…
As the article stated, many traditional outlets are viewing Twitter purely as a means to promote their content. What they seem to…
A look inside the rapidly-expanding world of New York’s new-media stars
New-media companies like BuzzFeed, Gawker, VICE Media and Tumblr are all expanding rapidly both in New York itself and around the world — almost all are moving into new buldings or taking over more of the ones they are in
One secret to the success of Quartz, BuzzFeed and Gawker: They look at news as a service
Most traditional media outlets are used to thinking of journalism or news as something they create and then distribute to a waiting audience — but seeing it as a product or service instead can change the way you think about your job in some fundamental ways
Al Jazeera’s digital news venture AJ+ launches with a dedicated iPhone app
Al Jazeera is officially unveiling AJ+ and the AJ+ iPhone app, which aims to bring news and context to people who don’t watch news on TV anymore.
Journalism and the internet: Is it the best of times? No — but it’s not the worst of times either
Writer David Sessions argues in a piece at Patrol magazine that journalism is worse because of the effects of the internet — but most of the things that he and others complain about have been a part of the media business for hundreds of years, including clickbait
Quality journalism takes time and effort and its a team effort. The best journalism comes from journalist/reporters who are educated sufficiently to ask the right questions along with editors who can help the journalist/report hone in on nut of the story. None of this is, or should be, free. I…
Quality journalism takes time and effort and its a team effort. The best journalism comes from journalist/reporters who are educated sufficiently to…
Journalism is doing just fine, thanks — it’s mass-media business models that are ailing
Some argue that the rise of the internet has destroyed — or severely crippled — journalism, but all it has really done is disrupted traditional mass-media business models. Journalism itself has never been healthier, and new players are finding new models
Facebook shifts its algorithm to fight clickbait. Will it kill off Upworthy and Buzzfeed?
Facebook is going after clickbait with its new algorithm changes. That could have a profound impact on the traffic Buzzfeed, Upworthy and their lesser rivals see.
Open journalism also means opening up your data, so others can use and improve it
Just as it does for the code behind software, opening up the data behind news stories and other forms of journalism has a number of benefits, including the fact that it’s easier to detect and fix errors — and it’s easier for others to expand and re-use the data
Promiscuous media: News needs to go where the people are, not the other way around
Media companies like BuzzFeed, NowThis News and Fusion are increasingly creating content that is designed to live on other apps and services rather than just including links to their websites. This promiscuous approach to media is a smart strategy in an increasingly crowded environment
Ben Smith on BuzzFeed’s mass deletion: Part of being experimental is deleting your failed experiments
Part of BuzzFeed’s challenge as it evolves into a major media entity is to somehow marry its experimental nature with its broader journalistic ambitions, and the deletion of thousands of old articles is a symbol of the tension between those two things
Is BuzzFeed’s deletion of articles an ethical lapse or the growing pains of a new-media entity?
BuzzFeed has come under fire for deleting thousands of old articles, which founder Jonah Peretti says didn’t live up to the kinds of standards the site wants to adhere to now. Should the company be criticized for doing this because it’s a journalistic no-no, or congratulated for evolving?
Can a billion-dollar media entity be run like a startup? BuzzFeed gets $50M to find out
BuzzFeed has closed a new financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz that values the company at close to a billion dollars. But can founder Jonah Peretti make BuzzFeed a globe-spanning media entity without losing the new-media DNA that got it to where it is?
Here’s a secret: I think Whisper can be used in some interesting ways by news organizations
Whisper may get lumped in with Secret and other trendy anonymous-sharing apps, but the editorial team behind the service — led by former Gawker writer Neetzan Zimmerman — is doing some interesting things with it from a journalistic perspective, and that bears watching
The existential question at the heart of Upworthy: Is viral clickbait okay if it brings attention to something worthwhile?
Upworthy often gets lumped in with creators of cheap clickbait content like ViralNova, but the company’s editorial director says it is driven by a different mission: to use social tools to get content about socially important topics in front of as many people as possible
The seven most interesting things BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti said to Felix Salmon in his massive interview
In a series of interviews, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti talked with blogger Felix Salmon about the rise of Huffington Post, the evolution of BuzzFeed and the future of media. It’s really long, so we picked out the most interesting and/or important parts
Is Medium a platform or a publisher? And is Matter a magazine or a collection? Yes
Medium founder Evan Williams tried to clear up some of the confusion around whether his site is a platform, a publisher or a kind of magazine — but some of that confusion can’t be dispelled because the service has elements of all three. Sometimes it’s okay to experiment
RebelMouse relaunches as a full-fledged publishing platform that’s tuned for viral content
RebelMouse, the social-aggregation platform founded by Paul Berry — the former chief technology officer at Huffington Post — is relaunching as a full-fledged publishing system designed for media companies who want to control the social ecosystem around their content
Amazon Prime members will reportedly get a streaming music service this summer
It looks as if you can add Amazon to the list of companies adding music streaming. A new report suggests the service is coming to Prime in June or July.
The internet didn’t invent viral content or clickbait journalism — there’s just more of it now, and it happens faster
Many people seem to believe that the idea of “clickbait” or artificially viral content was invented by the internet or social media, but it has been around for centuries and was arguably perfected by newspapers — all the web has done is make it faster and more efficient
Traffic is a good thing for media companies to pay attention to — except when it isn’t
More and more publishers are choosing to tie the compensation they give their writers to some kind of traffic-based measurement — but short-term metrics like pageviews and unique visitors are inherently flawed, and as such aren’t always a good measure of actual value
BuzzFeed and Time magazine: The next big thing always starts out looking like a toy, and media is no exception
In an internal memo, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti compares his upstart media company to the venerable newsmagazine Time. Is there any truth to this comparison? More than some members of the mainstream media would probably like to admit
People often retweet without reading, data shows
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/14/5411934/youre-not-going-to-read-this Sharing on social media doesn’t actually mean a user has read a piece of content, The Verge reports, citing findings from…
Facebook and the race to make content go viral — meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Two charts show how dominant Facebook is when it comes driving viral traffic to content from publishers like BuzzFeed and Upworthy — but depending on a platform like Facebook for your livelihood is just as risky as relying on Google was
In 12 years of blogging, the more things change, the more they stay the same
Over the past 12 years, blogging has gone from being a niche curiosity to becoming a catch-all phrase for everything from rants to press release rewrites. However, what has not changed is its ethos and its importance in an increasingly content rich world.
Facebook wants to be a newspaper — meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Mark Zuckerberg and the man in charge of Facebook’s newsfeed want it to become like a newspaper, and highlight more “high quality” content — but what if that’s not what users actually want to see? Will they rebel against Facebook as content gatekeeper?
Twitter hoaxes and the ethics of new media — what happens now that we are all journalists?
It would be nice if both traditional and new-media outlets would do a little more checking before they report on something — but how much responsibility do the perpetrators of hoaxes bear for the perpetuation of untruths?
The scorpion and the frog: Who wins as Facebook makes tweaks to its newsfeed algorithms?
Facebook is making changes to the way its News Feed ranks content, and some publishers fear that they could be impacted — but whatever happens, the risks of relying on a third-platform for your content are well known
A growing obsession with viral content exposes the weakness of most digital media
Everyone from BuzzFeed to the Washington Post seems to be chasing after viral content because of the traffic it brings — but all this does is reinforce how doomed the pageview-based model really is
Vice magazine and disruption in media: The next big thing always starts out looking like a toy
Like BuzzFeed, Vice Media often gets dismissed as a joke, or something not worth paying attention to — but it is hiring hundreds of journalists, and is part of the future of media whether traditional journalists like it or not
Former NYT and Reuters editor Jim Roberts talks about why he is joining Mashable
Jim Roberts, a former New York Times editor and Reuters executive, is joining Mashable as executive editor, and says he wants to expand the kinds of journalism the site does while taking advantage of its social-web skills
BuzzFeed is crowdsourcing translation with language learning startup Duolingo
As BuzzFeed expands internationally, it’s not relying solely on local-language editors or traditional translation. Instead, it’s outsourcing translation work to language learning startup Duolingo.
The soul of a new machine: Gawker struggles with the slippery slope between viral and true
When you come across a viral story about a heart-warming incident that you know will get millions of pageviews, how closely should you look into the claims that the viral story is based on?
Native Advertising 101: Understanding the native continuum
What are the different forms of native advertising, and how should you pick among them? Here’s a guide.
The unfortunate fact is that online journalism can’t survive without a wealthy benefactor or cat GIFs
It’s always been true to some extent, but it is even more true now — serious online journalism requires something else to subsidize it, whether it’s a rich benefactor or cat GIFs and slideshows.
What can the failure of Tina Brown and The Daily Beast tell us about the future of media?
Despite her successful track record at magazines like Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, editor Tina Brown was incapable of making The Daily Beast work. Her failure there says a lot about how the media landscape has changed.
BuzzFeed puts in new policies for “community” posts: an uneasy attempt at control
Political and activist groups are using BuzzFeed’s self-publishing tools to promote controversial messages. On Wednesday, the site put out new policies and guidelines to govern “community” submissions.
Newspapers may be dying, but the internet didn’t kill them — and journalism is doing just fine
As journalism professor George Brock points out, the newspaper industry has been in decline since long before the internet came along — and journalism is doing fine if you know where to look.
BuzzFeed is the media industry’s worst nightmare — profitable, growing and investing in news
According to an internal memo from founder Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed has tripled its traffic in a year, has more than 300 employees, is profitable and plans to invest in breaking news and investigative journalism.
How the News Got Less Mean
How the News Got Less Mean Has social media made the news toothless? That’s the charge made by Time reporter Eliana Dockterman in conversations…
How Orange is the New Black is keeping the buzz alive
Have you finished binge-viewing “Orange is the New Black” yet? Excited about next season? Well, that’s Netflix’s challenge — keeping you excited until the as-yet-unknown premiere date. But here’s what might help with that.
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The rise of reputation systems: finding on-demand experts in today’s work world
On-demand expertise is a large part of the future of work, but getting that expertise can be a complicated process. But challenges can be overcome through freelance marketplaces, crowdsourcing platforms, and expert communities.
Amping up the GIF: Zeega wants to re-invent interactive media on mobile
What happens if you combine audio and visuals into one, and then let consumers take control over the experience through gestures on mobile? Zeega, a company from the new media accelerator Matter, is finding out.
BuzzFeed app offers custom news feed: readers can get more corgis, less Congress
A new version of BuzzFeed’s app lets readers create a personalized story feed. The tool may be a model for publishers trying to navigate the mobile ad market.
3 signs you’ve left your job: creator of “BuzzFeed Lists” departs
Scott Lamb, who laid the foundation for much of BuzzFeed, has left the company to begin a new, undisclosed project.
Photographer sues BuzzFeed for $3.6M over viral sharing model
A photographer says BuzzFeed should pay copyright damages not only for an unauthorized photo that appeared on its site — but for the dozens of other sites on which the photo appeared.
BuzzFeed hires Guardian bureau chief in latest push for influence
BuzzFeed is in the process of a rapid-fire evolution from banal list site to serious news player. Its hiring of a senior Guardian journalist also reflects its enviable financial position.
News360 puts ‘native advertising’ into its personal news app
Two popular trends — personalized news readers and native advertising — meet in a new ad product offered by News360.
Politico’s Jim VandeHei on why Bloomberg is a scary competitor and subscriptions will keep growing
In a Q&A, Politco’s executive editor talks about how to stay relevant as your media company gets older, how to grow in a saturated Washington market, and why he barely watches TV.
Can a new generation of web companies finally bring emotion to online advertising?
Just as the Mad Men of the 50’s and 60’s tapped into consumer desires and emotions for a new school of advertising, modern companies like Instagram and Pinterest will need a similar revolution in how we think about ads if they want to make money.
New York Times looks at sponsored stories, expanding ads — and that may be a good thing
The New York Times has disavowed the current trend towards “native advertising” but a report suggests it is close to embracing it.
BuzzFeed partners with CNN, announces LA-based “social video” studio (Update)
Viewers got a first taste of a new partnership between BuzzFeed and CNN with a video clip that appeared on the viral site Tuesday morning. The deal also appears to involve syndicating YouTube content.
Did Bloomberg reporters “snoop” on clients? Depends on what you call snooping
Bloomberg is at the center of a storm over its reporters’ use of the company’s terminals to track customers. The incident has been somewhat overblown — but the underlying issue of news and data platforms has not.
Get your cat on: BuzzFeed creates new section where readers can publish
Users will now get their own vertical on BuzzFeed, where they can submit according to their “Cat Power.”
5 startups changing the way the news business delivers content
From PaidContent Live 2013, we brought you five different entrepreneurs who talked about ways in which they are changing up business models for media and the ways in which people consume content.
Native advertising: winners, losers and a lot of hype
“Native advertising” is on the lips of everyone in publishing and advertising these days. Blogger and skeptic Felix Salmon asked executives from BuzzFeed and Forbes what it really means.
How Betaworks is rolling out its new machine gun-style media play
New media incubator and venture firm Betaworks is increasingly morphing into an operating company and it’s got a new rapid development launch approach that will deliver five social media products in five weeks. What’ll stick?
50 percent of Buzzfeed’s traffic now comes from mobile devices
The world is ending for traditional media companies, but new players who ignore the rules, and bet on mobile, will prevail, argues Huffington Post Co-Founder and Buzzfeed Chairman Kenneth Lerer.
Why BuzzFeed’s attempt to reinvent online advertising is a lot harder than it looks
BuzzFeed has become the poster child for what some call sponsored content or “native advertising,” but despite the skills of founder Jonah Peretti, the secret to making ads go viral is not quite as simple as it appears to be.
Why is it so hard for us to imagine that a site like BuzzFeed could do serious journalism?
Newspapers have been a blend of the serious and the entertaining for decades — why is it so surprising that a site like BuzzFeed could broaden its appeal into more serious topics as well as funny cat photos?
BuzzFeed courts Brits with new UK homepage, London launch
Can America’s viral site BuzzFeed succeed in a country where sensationalist journalism already thrives? We’ll soon find out.
How the fastest-growing media site could help Democrats win the next election
Upworthy is attracting attention for its headlines and its viral videos about gay marriage, women’s rights and other social causes. But the site’s real value may be its potential to help the Democrats maintain their lead in social media and big data.
Washington Post steps into sponsored posts with a new platform, BrandConnect
On Tuesday, the Washington Post stepped into the sponsored content fray with a new platform, BrandConnect, that lets marketers create content and publishes it on the newspaper’s homepage.
When advertising becomes content, who wins — advertisers or publishers, or both?
One of the biggest trends in media at the moment is “sponsored content” or what some call “native advertising.” But is it the savior of online media, or just another mirage in the advertising desert?
Disruption guru Clay Christensen says incumbent media players are making a classic mistake
Existing players in an industry almost always fail to appreciate how disruption will affect them or understand how to adapt to it, Harvard professor Clay Christensen says, and media companies are making all of those same mistakes.
What a pig, a goat and an eagle can tell us about the decline of traditional media
When news shows rely on “viral” videos for their programming, without bothering to even try and verify whether they are real or not, all they do is push their viewers towards the original source of that content.
If you are running advertorial or sponsored content, Google is watching you
Google has reiterated a warning to publishers that its ban on links that are designed to enhance a site’s PageRank applies not just to paid links but to sponsored content and advertorial as well.
How can health tech get beyond early adopters to reduce care disparities among the masses?
Health tech entrepreneurs and a report released this week look at ways to bridge knowledge and behavior gaps in health technology.
“The brain of the New York Times, the body of BuzzFeed” — Slate’s third act
In its 17 years, Slate has distinguished itself as a publishing innovator and a home for well-written news and ideas. But, until recently, it has been hampered by a lack of technology and a business model. Is that about to change?
FT announces buyouts in quest to be “a digital platform first, and a newspaper second”
The Financial Times is hoping that at least 35 staff members will accept buyouts as it attempts to prepare for a digital-first future. That future includes hiring 10 new digital employees and being choosier about stories, editor Lionel Barber wrote Monday in an email to employees.
What we can learn from The Atlantic‘s sponsored content debacle
The Atlantic caused a furore this week with a piece of sponsored content about the Church of Scientology, which raised a host of questions about the risks of “native advertising” — which many see as the future of online media.
Why BuzzFeed’s photo spat with Reddit could be just the tip of the iceberg
BuzzFeed has been criticized for taking images from other sites such as Reddit without giving credit to the original creator — something that the web’s “remix culture” is making more and more difficult. But BuzzFeed’s desire to create sponsored content makes it more important than ever.
BuzzFeed parties on with launch of Hollywood site
BuzzFeed has had a very good year after earning heaps of funding and expanding its serious news footprint from New York to Washington. Now, the viral site wants a piece of entertainment reporting.
Reddit raising venture financing? It would be crazy not to
Reddit, the online community that gained fame last year for a Q&A with President Obama, is said to be raising venture funding that could value the company at $400 million — and would give it ammunition to compete with other new-media players such as BuzzFeed and Tumblr.
You’re dead to me: Facebook prank shows how social media is (still) bad at death
A new Facebook prank making the rounds lets you turn someone’s account into a memorial page by sending along an email address and a fake obituary.
Why Tumblr and BuzzFeed are on a collision course in 2013
BuzzFeed has built the site from just a repository for animated cat GIFs into a substantial media entity, and just raised a new round of financing — and Tumblr also has a fairly deep war-chest and dreams of expansion. And both are aiming at the same targets.
BuzzFeed raises $19.3M in fourth funding round, bringing total so far to $46M
BuzzFeed announced Thursday morning that it raised $19.3 million in a fourth funding round. The round was led by VC firm NEA, with participation from Hearst, Lerer Ventures, RRE, SoftBank and Buddy Media cofounders Michael and Kass Lazerow. In total, BuzzFeed has raised around $46 million.
With HealthYear, Startup Health-backed Greatist takes a page from Codecademy
Inspired by Codecademy’s learn-to-code CodeYear initiative, New York-based Greatist this week launched HealthYear to help people take a more proactive approach to their health.
Can you mix hookers with highbrow? 5 questions for BuzzFeed in 2013
BuzzFeed became a disruptive media force in 2012 by adding serious news to the silly and sleazy stuff it’s long produced. Here are some questions that will determine whether BuzzFeed can shape news in the long run.
Making “temporary” content online harder than it looks for Snapchat, Facebook
Think you can send content on your smartphone that won’t appear elsewhere? Evidence that your Snapchat videos can be retrieved without notifying the sender comes as further proof what people in the digital age are realizing — true online privacy can be hard to come by.
BuzzFeed’s latest: Is this the future of magazines?
The business success of digital news sites has led more of them to apply their technical wizardry to long-form journalism. BuzzFeed is the latest example. Will its style of feature one days replace magazines like the New Yorker?
For some companies, confusion in app-land equals money
Growing number of mobile apps on multiple mobile platforms made by the likes of Google and Apple means that app discovery has become a major challenge. For some companies, including the newly reborn Digg, now part of Betaworks, that represents an opportunity.
Video: How to make digital content blow up
Online publishers are benefitting by using technology to identify what readers really want to read and share. Watch BuzzFeed, AOL and Unruly Media executives discuss their viral media strategies.
‘Content is king’ again: why Bill Gates may be right after all
Despite that famous 1996 declaration, many publishers have struggled to find effective consumer offerings online. But now a perfect storm of new models and prospects gives renewed confidence for many.
East vs West: Tumblr’s Karp on why New York is no ‘Valley Jr.’
Start spreading the news — New York’s buzziest new media start-ups draw from a richer cultural tapestry that can lure engineering talent from Palo Alto, Gotham founders say. Now they just need a massive exit.
Is it time for the New York Times to embrace sponsored stories?
More and more publications are turning to “native advertising” as the solution to declining display ad dollars and readers’ ongoing switch to mobile. Will we soon see an advertiser like Tesla paying to include a story in the New York Times?
BuzzFeed chooses editor for longform journalism
Viral news site BuzzFeed has selected one-time Spin editor Steve Kandell to oversee its plans to expand its selection of New Yorker-style longform pieces. The move promises more prestige for BuzzFeed but it’s too soon to say if it makes good business sense.
7 stories to read this weekend
Hurricane Sandy has been on the mind of everyone this past week. Here are some stories about raccoons, Australia, China, baseball and the U.S. post office, that might give you some momentary distraction from what has been a tragic week.
The Atlantic launches “The Sexes,” but don’t call it a “ladyblog”
The Atlantic’s new web channel, The Sexes, focuses on gender issues. The company stresses that it is for both men and women and is not just “another ladyblog.”
When does community action against an anonymous troll become a lynch mob?
A Twitter user named @ComfortablySmug has been held up as a villain for posting fake news reports to Twitter, and his identity has been forcibly revealed by BuzzFeed — but is that, and all that it implies, an appropriate punishment for his alleged crimes?
Tweeting fake news in a crisis — illegal or just immoral?
A New York man who used Twitter to send fake news reports during Hurricane Sandy is one of the city’s biggest jerks. But should he also face criminal charges?
Sandy takes out Gawker, Huffpo and other sites
Hurricane Sandy’s impact made itself felt on major media properties including the Huffington Post, Gawker, and Buzzfeed. All of those sites reported outages around 7 p.m. EDT.
BuzzFeed goes to Hollywood — but can it crash the party?
BuzzFeed’s mix of viral content driven by technology has already made it a potent force in news and political reporting. Now, the site wants to apply the same playbook to entertainment news.
BuzzFeed lawsuit over celeb snaps raises copyright questions
BuzzFeed published nine photographs and now an image owner wants $1.3 million. Is this a fair or practical way to use copyright law in an age where images are everywhere?
Kings of long form: New Yorker, The Atlantic and … BuzzFeed?
BuzzFeed’s viral-first approach is shaking up news and political reporting. Now, it has set its sights on the last bastion of traditional print journalism — long form essays. Can it compete?
E-mail sharing is vanishing from the online news world
The days of publishers showing “most e-mailed articles” may be numbered as readers abandon the familiar “email this” icon in favor of other ways of news sharing.
Zowie! BuzzFeed launches nostalgia channel
Viral site BuzzFeed has a new retro-channel that taps into nostalgia cravings. The new vertical shows once again how BuzzFeed’s content and advertising savvy are pushing it to the front ranks of media powers.
Buzzfeed aims for more viral ads with purchase of Kingfish Labs
Social news site Buzzfeed has acquired Kingfish Labs, a New York startup that processes natural language on Facebook to determine user interests. Buzzfeed said it plans to apply Kingfish’s technology to optimize ad targeting for its brand clients on social networks.
Bleacher Report and the evolution of the content farm
The purchase of the sports-blogging site Bleacher Report by Turner Broadcasting unit fills a content hole for the Time Warner unit, but it is also a validation of the user-generated-content model behind the sports-blogging network, and a sign of the disruptive effects that model can have.
Patent troll tries to saw BuzzFeed over video ads
A shell company says it owns the right to insert certain types of ads into online videos. Its lawsuit against popular viral site Buzzfeed shows how the problem of “patent trolling” is touching every part of the technology and media industry.
The Ingram 5: Media’s top innovators
The annual paidContent 50 list ranks media companies based on digital revenues. But revenues aren’t the only thing to watch. Here are the five media companies that I think have most interesting, innovative strategies.
What the mainstream media could learn from BuzzFeed
While many still associate BuzzFeed with photo galleries of kittens and other web ephemera, the network has grown into a substantial digital-media entity, and an internal memo from founder Jonah Peretti has some lessons that other media outlets would be wise to pay attention to.
New York Times and BuzzFeed team up for OMG! moments at 2012 conventions
What do you get when you mix the New York Times with a site best known for viral cat videos? We’ll soon find out as the Grey Lady announced today that it will be working with BuzzFeed to provide video from this summer’s political conventions.
Does social beat search, or does “peacocking” get in the way?
Most people want to share content that makes them look good — a concept that Gravity CEO Amit Kapur called “peacocking” at paidContent 2012 this afternoon. Sometimes that urge is a good thing, but sometimes it gets in the way of delivering a truly personalized online experience.
Update: Ze Frank raises $200k to kickstart his media empire
Hot off the heals of his Kickstarter success, video blogging pioneer Ze Frank has raised an additional $756,000 from Marc Andreessen and others. His declared goal: To build “a new kind of media company” with a number of shows and active audience engagement.
The hype around video and why Facebook rules — 5 questions for Jonah Peretti
Media people don’t like combining hard-nosed political reporting with lots of kitties. Excerpt for Jonah Peretti.
BuzzFeed’s Peretti: Design engaging ads made for sharing
Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s co-founder, spoke at Ad Age’s Digital Conference and talked about how it’s helping usher in the transition from search to social. He said the new standard in advertising is ads that are engaging and are ripe for sharing.
Industry Moves: Gannett; BuzzFeed; Operative; Informa
The latest hires in the tech and media industry…
Why kitties and puppies are (still) content kings
The phrase “cats on skateboards” harkens an earlier phase on the internet when websites feasted on slews of amateur content. Online entertainment has since become more sophisticated. Or has it?
The lesson of BuzzFeed: Media companies are everywhere
Can BuzzFeed turn itself from a silly meme-generator into a serious media outlet by hiring journalists like Politico writer Ben Smith? If the meteoric rise of the Huffington Post has shown us anything, it’s that new media entities can spring from the most unlikely of sources.
BuzzFeed Opens Up Access to Its Viral Dashboard
BuzzFeed, which tracks online topics that have gone viral, is offering a version of the analytics dashboard that the site uses to monitor the spread of these Internet “memes” to any website, brand or publisher that wants to track the popularity of their online content.
Viral Content Tracker BuzzFeed Raises $8 Million
BuzzFeed, the self-proclaimed tracker of the “web’s obsessions,” has raised $8 million in its second round of funding. The site’s home page…
Trend Site Buzzfeed Raises $3.5 Million First Round
Buzzfeed, a NY-based trend-tracking site has raised a $3.5 million led by Hearst Interactive Media and Softbank, reports CNET. The site, whi…
