When I began to write this entry I was figuring out a good way to present BuzzFeed. I opened the BuzzFeed webpage looking for ideas, but instead of doing productive work, I stayed for minutes -many minutes- procrastinating on the site.
Headlines like “The Miley Cyrus GIF that will destroy your thanksgiving”[1], “43 reasons why we all should be like Carlton Banks” or “14 signs cheese is your one true love”, mixed with political news and puppies pictures were taking all my precious time confirming, once again, the success of the BuzzFeed formula.
So, what is BuzzFeed, again?
According to Wikipedia, “BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of ‘the viral web in realtime’”.
Co-founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti, the BuzzFeed homepage consists of a time-sequential list of posts from users and staff members. The content of the posts is usually either a video, image, or link. These posts are the site’s attempt to capture the essence of viral media currently resonating on the web.
Before Buzzfeed, Jonah Peretti, a graduate of the MIT Media Labs, experimented with viral projects and studied how information and ideas spread throughout the web. Also, he cofounded the successful Internet newspaper Huffington Post in 2005.
In general terms, BuzzFeed mixes elements of trivial and entertainment journalism to post news and “listicles” (lists of random subjects related with pop culture and Internet phenomena). Also it uses technologies and algorithms to navigate on social media like Facebook or Twitter and track contents in real time.
This combination has launched BuzzFeed as a website with 85 million visits in October 2013 and a revenue projection of $60mm for 2013[
Technology and the Human Factor
In September, Jonah Peretti sent an email to the BuzzFeed employees thanking them for their work and setting out a route to follow for 2014 and the upcoming years.
In that message, published on Peretti’s personal LinkedIn page, the cofounder explains that the success of BuzzFeed is due to technology and a fresh editorial angle converging at the same company. This convergence is an asset in a competitive landscape where all other publishers integrate “off-the-shelf-products” built by others, and after years of investments the formula is “paying fantastically today”
Mark Wilkie is the Chief Technology Officer. He has built and grown the team and software that helped shape BuzzFeed into what they call a “state of the art, technology driven media company”.
Before arriving to BuzzFeed in 2006, Wilkie led the technology team of Kinja Media, a news aggregator or, according to its website, a “publishing platform designed to make great stories by breaking down the lines between traditional roles of content creators and consumer”. He brings a background focused on social media interaction, explaining BuzzFeed’s complete twist from broadcasting to the multiple-voiced social media.
Another important factor in BuzzFeed’s growth is that the company is rapidly expanding to other platforms beyond the website. The articles are structured to be read and watched on smartphones, using apps for iOS and Android.
According to numbers given by Jonah Peretti, in August 2013, BuzzFeed had 100 million mobile visits to the website and the app. The CEO attributes the large amount of mobile visits to three factors: luck, a young readership comfortable with mobile devices, and mobile-friendly content. Despite their current success in this market, the company will be investing even more resources in mobile technology as part of their long-term plan of expansion.
BuzzFeed to the people
As I’ve written, BuzzFeed is an Internet publisher that has taken a big advantage of the social media landscape. Even though the company has a large staff of reporters and writers, they are also open to interesting user-posted material.
According to the instructions for new BuzzFeed users, people have to sign up for an account (a simple process with the option of linking BuzzFeed directly to a Facebook account). Then they have to open up the BuzzFeed posting interface that allow them to post items such as a video, images or GIFs. Users can make their own lists using the same interface. Once the content has been added, users must write a headline, a description and add a thumbnail to the post.
The website suggests posting “funny, interesting stuff” that users have found online or made themselves, that have a chance of going viral and being shared by other people. The instructions encourage people to post lists of things, promising that BuzzFeed’s editors will feature the best posts from BuzzFeed’s community on the front page every day. They emphasize that just posting anything does not mean it will be on the main page – the editors choose their favorites.
To organize all this information BuzzFeed has a list of “badges” (ie: LOL, Win, Cute, etc), that are assigned by BuzzFeed algorithms which take the number of corresponding reactions a post gets, its viral traffic, and editorial merit into account. Also there are other badges, like gold stars, that depend on BuzzFeed’s editors criteria. Users of BuzzFeed can earn “Awards” based on what kind of post they make, what kinds of post they react to, and what kinds of things they do in the comments. The awards are just symbolic.
The media landscape
It is important to understand that to make BuzzFeed’s success possible, there’s a whole social and media landscape that shapes how entertainment and information sites are built.
With the arriving of Internet, the journalistic article has turned into a short text that has the mission of circulating through cyberspace over different channels, including search engines and social networking.
This scenario has allowed the growth of news aggregators, which -as its name say- aggregates syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and video blogs (vlogs) in one location for easy viewing.
Instead of being a “Feed” of information and news, BuzzFeed uses the social content viralized on the Internet and “curates” the images, GIFs, videos and memes that circulate on the Internet.
To accomplish that mission, as I said, there is a team of writers and technology applications created by the company.
In addition to user-created content and news-aggregating technology, BuzzFeed has added a team of investigative and traditional journalists over the last two years. Amongst them is Mark Schoofs, foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, who will lead a team of six BuzzFeed investigative reporters. Also, in 2011, Ben Smith became the Editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed. Smith was on-staff at “Politico”, The Washington Political news site. Miriam Elder, a journalist formerly from The Guardian, will be in charge of the international news agenda.
Traditional journalistic work is displayed on the main page of BuzzFeed, under the heading “Big Stories”. This area contains articles and reports about different subjects, from protests in Afghanistan or LGBT rights in Russia. The project legitimizes BuzzFeed as a serious company, in the tradition of the best American Journalism and with a range of influence wider than mere entertainment.
This strategy of mixing shallow and serious content is not new: media, from TV programming to the most prestigious newspapers, has to dedicate some space –depending on the mission of the company- to entertainment. In the Internet age, when a website can be “weighed” by the number of clicks it receives, it is necessary to produce frivolous content as a way to increase clicks and show attractive numbers to advertisers. Selling advertising is what pays for more serious journalism, allowing the company to write better, and more expensive, content.
And this is the point where BuzzFeed has made its smartest move…
Advertisement: Your click is my salary
When this mix of algorithm-based technology and human talent catches the attention of readers, the big question becomes: How to make money with it?
Traditional Internet media usually made money by placing an advertisement banner in areas of the screen, thinking that readers will actually be interested in clicking to learn more about toothpaste, cheese, tomato paste, or washing machines. It’s the same old advertisement idea throughout media history, thinking that people really care about watching advertising during the game or the movies.
BuzzFeed’s innovative idea is to make people be interested in advertisement by incorporating it into the organics of the storytelling. This means that when readers are looking at pictures or gifts under the headline “12 reasons your dog is your soul mate” -sponsored by a famous dog food brand- they are being active and interested readers of advertising.
It is the old concept of trying to turn advertisement into entertainment, but doing “listicles” is easier and faster than shooting a complex audiovisual product –like a good advertisement short or a jingle- and also has the asset that it can be measured by counting the “clicks” for every visit to the website. Smart, no?
Another advertising asset makes the business even more attractive: the ability to socially and geographically stratify the readership, allowing advertisers to sell their products to a very specific human group.
In terms of age groups, the majority of BuzzFeed readers are in their 20’s and 30’s. That is the reason why many lists are targeted at that demographic’s cultural references. The best way to identify this group and call their attention is by writing articles with titles like: “43 reasons why we should be more like Carlton Banks” (Carlton Banks is a popular character from the TV Show “The Fresh Prince”, an icon from the 1990’s) or even more direct listicles like “25 Gifts Every Twentysomething Really Wants To Receive”.
In terms of geographic stratification, a smart move is to locate their readers in the US to sell focused publicity. For example “22 surefire signs that you are from New England” or “37 things that could only happen in Florida” or “32 reasons why California is the most beautiful state in the country”. In these cases, three sure shots to sell ice cream, orange juice or a burger chain –in that order- localized in specific areas.
In a landscape where traditional media is struggling to survive, BuzzFeed has turned into a pioneer of digital media by erasing the boundaries between what is journalism, information, entertainment, pop culture and advertising.
The same blurred boundaries that are the foundation of BuzzFeed’s success are also the basis for many critics´ arguments a topic that warrants its own paper). Many critics object to writing from the gut, elaborating subjective rankings and the chaotic mix of news, entertainment and advertisement.
Yes, BuzzFeed is still uncategorizable as media, but also the entire internet media business is defining its shape. BuzzFeed is shallow, chaotic and fun. In its favor, we can say that they are taking the risk of incorporating a “real news” team into an already-successful business model.
All of this mixture, embodied in BuzzFeed, represents, maybe, the possibilities of Internet.
Chaos, information, fun…aren’t these the reasons why we love Internet?
*Originally posted in castrintopost blog on December 2013.