Today BuzzFeed is known as a source of “news”, pop-culture, entertainment, and YouTube video series. It exploded into popularity with its listicles (list-articles) which still remain one of its more popular features, though it has since expanded into other forms of online media, including web comics, web video series, and–more recently–serious news.
But BuzzFeed started as something much smaller. In 2006 Jonah Peretti, then working for HuffingtonPost, started BuzzFeed. Back then it was a place that curated web content that algorithms predicted would become viral. Gradually it expanded into articles, first simply posts describing viral web content, and then their famous listicles, and eventually longer entertainment-based pieces and news. In 2016 they split their brand between BuzzFeed (entertainment) and BuzzFeed news (news-based content). Its online video presence also grew in popularity as web series it produced grew popular on YouTube.
From its inception as a viral curator to its modern identity as a source of pop culture content and “serious” news, BuzzFeed, and its millennial founders, have demonstrated a desire to remain ahead of the curve when it comes to producing, distributing, and cultivating content in the twenty-first century. Their strategy seems to involve jumping on trends to see which ones will pay off. Over the past thirteen years they have experimented in many areas of content creation, with varying success. This demonstrates an entrepreneurial spirit of a willingness to experiment and an understanding of the purpose of failure in innovation.
Though far from a perfect company (it has weathered criticism for plagiarism and false-reporting and poor work environments), BuzzFeed will remain a thoughtful example of an entrepreneurial spirit in a decades old medium (the news and entertainment). No doubt, it will continue to innovate and experiment in the years to come.
Buzzfeed is an interesting company, it has really expanded over the years, growing to include news and various youtube series. I know Buzzfeed mostly from their, often very random, online quizzes, but I wasn’t aware of their orgin story. I’m not surprized that their creator wrote for the Huffington Post. Both write articles using a list format with pictures. It’s interesting to watch how it’s doing as it ventures into the news realm and how it balances that with it’s reputation of having fun quizzes.
I honestly had no idea BuzzFeed was trying to break into the news realm. I only know them for their quizzes, YouTube series, and list-articles. They do seem to try new things and their quizzes and articles cover just about every topic imaginable. Now that I know more about the origin, I might pay more attention to how BuzzFeed is changing and experimenting with how to deliver information to readers and viewers.