BuzzFeed facts for kids
Logo used since 2019
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Formerly
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BuzzFeed Laboratories (2006–2016) |
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| Public | |
| Traded as | NASDAQ: BZFD |
| ISIN | ISIN: [https://isin.toolforge.org/?language=en&isin=US12430A1025 US12430A1025] |
| Industry | Online media |
| Founded | November 1, 2006 |
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| Headquarters |
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U.S.
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Key people
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| Revenue |  US$437 million (2022) |
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Number of employees
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1,368 (December 2022) |
| Subsidiaries | HuffPost |
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Kenneth Lerer, co-founder and chairman of The Huffington Post, started as a co-founder and investor in BuzzFeed and is now the executive chairman.
Originally known for online quizzes, "listicles", and pop culture articles, the company has grown into a global media and technology company, providing coverage on a variety of topics including politics, DIY, animals, and business. BuzzFeed generates revenue through native advertising, a strategy that helps increase the likelihood of viewers reading through the content of advertisements.
In late 2011, BuzzFeed hired Ben Smith of Politico as editor-in-chief, to expand the site into long-form journalism and reportage. After years of investment in investigative journalism, by 2021 BuzzFeed News had won the National Magazine Award, the George Polk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize, and was nominated for the Michael Kelly Award. BuzzFeed News later moved to its own domain rather than existing as a section of the main BuzzFeed website. On April 20, 2023, Peretti announced that BuzzFeed would be shuttering BuzzFeed News and focusing its news efforts into The Huffington Post, laying off about 180 workers.
A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that in the United States, BuzzFeed was viewed as an unreliable source by the majority of respondents, regardless of age or political affiliation. The company's audience has been described as left-leaning.
Contents
History
Prior to establishing BuzzFeed, Peretti was director of research and development and the OpenLab at Eyebeam, Johnson's New York City-based art and technology nonprofit organization, where he experimented with other viral media.
In 2006, while working at the Huffington Post, Peretti started BuzzFeed (originally called BuzzFeed Laboratories) as a side project, in partnership with his former supervisor John Johnson. In the beginning, BuzzFeed employed no writers or editors, just an "algorithm to cull stories from around the web that were showing stirrings of virality." The site initially launched an instant messaging client, BuzzBot, which sent users a link to popular content. The messages were sent based on algorithms which examined the links that were being quickly disseminated, scouring through the feeds of hundreds of blogs that were aggregating them. Later, the site began spotlighting the most popular links that BuzzBot found. Peretti hired curators to help describe the content that was popular around the web. In 2011, Peretti hired Politico's Ben Smith, who earlier had achieved much attention as a political blogger, to assemble a news operation in addition to the many aggregated "listicles".
In 2016, BuzzFeed formally separated its news and entertainment content into BuzzFeed News and the newly formed BuzzFeed Entertainment Group, which also includes BuzzFeed Motion Pictures. As of 2016[update], BuzzFeed had correspondents from 12 countries, and foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. By the end of 2017[update], BuzzFeed employed around 1,700 employees worldwide, although it announced plans in November of that year to lay off around 100 employees in the US, 45 in the UK, and 100 in France in June 2018.
On January 23, 2019, BuzzFeed notified all employees via memo that there would be an upcoming 15% reduction in workforce affecting the international, web content, and news divisions of the company. The layoffs would affect approximately 200 employees. In 2020, BuzzFeed signed a deal with Universal Television to produce content based on its stories.
Three top BuzzFeed News editors in March 2022 announced that they would be resigning and the newsroom would face voluntary layoffs or job cuts. The cuts came after BuzzFeed investors encouraged Peretti to shut down all of BuzzFeed News, but he refused, CNBC reported.
Funding
BuzzFeed raised $3.5 million in 2008 through Hearst Ventures and Softbank. In 2011, BuzzFeed ran more than 100 social media campaigns, resulting in their revenue tripling compared to 2010. In January 2012, BuzzFeed announced that it had earned $15.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Ventures, Hearst Interactive Media, Softbank, and RRE Capital to expand the site's content. Later, in October 2012, BuzzFeed ran sponsored content for the Obama administration leading to an increase in ad revenue. By January 2013, BuzzFeed announced that New Enterprise Associates had raised $19.3 million. The company was reported to be profitable in 2013.
In 2014, it was reported that BuzzFeed had passed $100 million in revenue. In August 2014, BuzzFeed raised $50 million from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, more than doubling previous rounds of funding. The site was reportedly valued at around $850 million by Andreessen Horowitz. BuzzFeed generates its advertising revenue through native advertising that matches its editorial content, and does not rely on banner ads. BuzzFeed also uses its familiarity with social media to target conventional advertising through other channels, such as Facebook. In December 2014, growth equity firm General Atlantic acquired $50 million in secondary stock of the company.
In August 2015, NBCUniversal made a $200 million equity investment in BuzzFeed. Along with plans to hire more journalists to build a more prominent "investigative" unit, BuzzFeed planned on hiring journalists around the world and plans to open outposts in India, Germany, Mexico, and Japan. It planned on hiring staff for its UK bureau, its rapidly-expanding motion picture unit and its food-themed business, Tasty. NBCUniversal invested an additional $200 million in 2016 after the two companies had collaborated on many projects, namely the Rio Olympics. The companies planned to work together to market themselves to advertisers. Together, Comcast and its NBCUniversal subsidiary own about a third of BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed has said that it intends to stay independent.
After laying off 100 employees in 2017, BuzzFeed laid off 200 of its employees in 2019 to help facilitate growth despite raising revenue by 15% from 2017 to 2018. Facebook began funding two BuzzFeed News shows in 2019 for Watch. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, on March 25, 2020, BuzzFeed announced in an internal memo that it would cut employee salaries on a sliding scale of 5% (lowest income bracket) up to 25% (highest income bracket). Peretti said he would not be taking a salary until the end of the pandemic. Many staffers expressed relief at this announcement as there were no layoffs. On May 13, 2020, the company shut down its divisions in the UK and Australia, furloughing 10 news staff in the UK as well as four in its Australian outpost.
According to a news from June 24, 2021 on Variety, BuzzFeed, valued at $1.5 billion through a SPAC deal, is to go public and acquire Complex Networks for $300 million.
BuzzFeed raised $16.2M in its latest funding round, which was Post IPO round held on Dec 03, 2021.
Acquisitions and stock listing
BuzzFeed's first acquisition was in 2012 when the company purchased Kingfish Labs, a startup founded by Rob Fishman, initially focused on optimizing Facebook ads.
In October 2014, BuzzFeed announced its next acquisition, Torando Labs, which would become BuzzFeed's first data-engineering team.
On November 19, 2020, BuzzFeed announced that they would acquire HuffPost in a stock deal that made Verizon Media minority shareholder in BuzzFeed.
In June 2021, BuzzFeed announced its plans to go public via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and planned to acquire Complex Networks. After initially listing on Nasdaq at $10 a share, valuing the company at around $1.5 billion, the share price subsequently declined to under $1 by 2023, leading to a delisting notice by Nasdaq in May 2023, requiring them to raise the share price above $1 within 180 days or risk being removed from the exchange. Once the deadline for this notice passed in November 2023 with the stock price still below $1, they were given a further 180 days until May 2024. By January 2024, the stock price of the company had declined 98% since its initial listing, with the entire company now only worth around $37 million, and the company was significantly burdened with debt. In May 2024, BuzzFeed implemented a 4:1 reverse stock split, bringing them above the $1 a share threshold.
According to Reuters, British media group The Independent is reportedly discussing a multi-year agreement to acquire control of BuzzFeed and Huffington Post's operations in the UK and Ireland.
Divestitures
In February 2024, BuzzFeed announced the sale of Complex to NTWRK, a livestream shopping platform, even as it would retain some popular franchises. At the same time, it reportedly considered selling Tasty, a social media food brand. The moves marked a retreat for the company after its December 2021 public listing done to finance acquisitions and came during a difficult period for media companies. It also announced layoffs.
Content
BuzzFeed produces daily content, in which the work of staff reporters, contributors, syndicated cartoon artists, and its community are featured. Popular formats on the website include lists, videos, and quizzes. The style of such content inspired the parody website ClickHole. While BuzzFeed initially was focused exclusively on such viral content, according to The New York Times, "it added more traditional content, building a track record for delivering breaking news and deeply reported articles" in the years up to 2014. In that year, BuzzFeed deleted over 4000 early posts, "apparently because, as time passed, they looked stupider and stupider", as observed by The New Yorker.
BuzzFeed consistently ranked at the top of NewsWhip's "Facebook Publisher Rankings" from December 2013 to April 2014, until The Huffington Post entered the position.
News
BuzzFeed's news division began in December 2011 with the appointment of Ben Smith as editor-in-chief. In 2013, Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Schoofs of ProPublica was hired as head of investigative reporting. By 2016, BuzzFeed had 20 investigative journalists. Chief executive Jonah Peretti announced the BuzzFeed News division would close on April 20, 2023.
Video
BuzzFeed Video, BuzzFeed Motion Picture's flagship YouTube channel, produces original content. Its production studio and team are based in Los Angeles. Since hiring Ze Frank in 2012, BuzzFeed Video has produced several video series, including "The Try Guys". In August 2014, the company announced a new division, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which may produce feature-length films. As of September 1, 2021, BuzzFeed Video's YouTube channel had garnered more than 17.4 billion views and more than 20.3 million subscribers. BuzzFeed later announced that YouTube signed on for two feature-length series to be created by BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, entitled Broke and Squad Wars.
Podcasts
BuzzFeed started an in-house podcasting team in 2015, through which the podcasts Another Round and Internet Explorer were developed and launched. In September 2018, BuzzFeed shut down its podcast department and laid off the staff due to a lack of desired ad revenue. It cancelled most of its podcasts, including See Something, Say Something. In late January 2019, they fired 200 staff across the company and cancelled the remaining podcast, Thirst Aid Kit.
- Former podcasts
- Another Round
- Internet Explorer
- The News
- See Something, Say Something
- Thirst Aid Kit
- Reporting To You
- Rerun
- The Tell Show
- Women of the Hour
Community
On July 17, 2012, humor website McSweeney's Internet Tendency published a satirical piece entitled "Suggested BuzzFeed Articles", prompting BuzzFeed to create many of the suggestions. BuzzFeed listed McSweeney's as a "Community Contributor". The post subsequently received more than 350,000 page views, prompted BuzzFeed to ask for user submissions, and received media attention. Subsequently, the website launched the "Community" section in May 2013 to enable users to submit content. Users initially are limited to publishing only one post per day, but may increase their submission capacity by raising their "Cat Power", described on the BuzzFeed website as "an official measure of your rank in BuzzFeed's Community." A user's Cat Power increases as they achieve greater prominence on the site.
In January 2017, BuzzFeed's user-generated community content accumulated 100 million views.
In February 2019, BuzzFeed News voted to unionise, following major layoffs. A dispute between BuzzFeed's upper executives and the union began when the executives failed to show up to a meeting.
Tasty
BuzzFeed's video series on comfort food, Tasty, is made for Facebook, where it has 100 million followers as of December 2019. The channel has substantially more views than BuzzFeed's dedicated food site. The channel included five spinoff segments: "Tasty Junior"—which eventually spun off into its own page, "Tasty Happy Hour" (alcoholic beverages), "Tasty Fresh", "Tasty Vegetarian", and "Tasty Story"—which has celebrities making and discussing their own recipes. Tasty has also released a cookbook.
The company also operates international versions of Tasty. Tasty has also released its own kitchenware, which includes several products such as spatulas, cooking sheets, and mixing bowls. These products are sold in collaboration with Walmart.Tasty also sells their "One Top", which is a smart induction cooktop, as well as "Tasty Kits", which are kits that contains cooking items for cooking at home.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, "Tasty" streamed the Saturday Night Seder, an online Passover Seder that featured many celebrities and benefited the CDC Foundation.
Worth It
Since 2016, Tasty also sponsors a show named Worth It starring Steven Lim, Andrew Ilnyckyj, and Adam Bianchi. In each episode, the trio visit three different food places with three drastically different price points in one food category. Steven Lim also stars in BuzzFeed Blue's "Worth It – Lifestyle" videos. The series is similar, in that three items or experiences are valued from different companies, each at their different price point, but focus on material items and experiences, such as plane seats, hotel rooms, and haircuts. Lim left BuzzFeed in 2019 to start his own production company Watcher.
BuzzFeed Unsolved
BuzzFeed Unsolved was the most successful web series on BuzzFeed's BuzzFeed Multiplayer. The show was created by Ryan Bergara and features both him and Shane Madej (who replaced original co-host Brent Bennett). The show covers some of history's most famous unsolved mysteries, presenting them and the theories that surround them in a comedic manner. In some episodes, they visit the places involved with the mystery. Many of these episodes focus on the supernatural or paranormal and often include the pair ghost hunting during the investigations. In late 2019, Bergara and Madej started their own digital production company, Watcher Entertainment, with Worth It's Steven Lim; however, the two continued collaborating with BuzzFeed to produce BuzzFeed Unsolved until November 2021. The spiritual successor to BuzzFeed Unsolved is Ghost Files, a documentary entertainment web series by Watcher Entertainment that was first released on September 23, 2022.
The Try Guys
The Try Guys are a trio of friends (Eugene Lee Yang, Zach Kornfeld, Keith Habersberger, and formerly Ned Fulmer) who put themselves in different, and at times, compromising situations and record the results. In June 2018, the four left BuzzFeed and created their own independent channel, also titled "The Try Guys".
Night In/Night Out
Night In/Night Out was a series run by Ned and Ariel Fulmer. This show features the couple on two different dates, one at home featuring a homemade meal (using a BuzzFeed Tasty Recipe) and one at a restaurant in the Los Angeles area. Each episode focuses on one particular meal, such as baked salmon or hamburgers. At the end of each episode, Ned and Ariel would decide whether they preferred the home-cooked meal (and the accompanying ambiance and price tag) or the meal at the restaurant. However, the couple left BuzzFeed with the Try Guys in 2018, and the series was subsequently canceled.
Short-form animation
Around 2017, BuzzFeed launched Animation Lab with a focus on short-form animation content that is posted on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and later YouTube and Twitter. The studio has launched 30 projects during its existence, 4 of which have since been focused on due to finding success (Weird Helga, The Good Advice Cupcake, The Land of Boggs, and Chikn Nuggit), which as of 2021 had a combined total of over 17 million followers.
Notable stories
"The dress"
In February 2015, a post resulting in a debate over the color of an item of clothing from BuzzFeed's Tumblr editor Cates Holderness garnered more than 28 million views in one day, setting a record for most concurrent visitors to a BuzzFeed post. Holderness had shown the picture to other members of the site's social media team, who immediately began arguing about the dress colors among themselves. After creating a simple poll for users of the site, she left work and took the subway back to her Brooklyn home. When she got off the train and checked her telephone, it was overwhelmed by the messages on various sites. "I couldn't open Twitter because it kept crashing. I thought somebody had died, maybe. I didn't know what was going on." Later in the evening the page set a new record at BuzzFeed for concurrent visitors, which reached 673,000 at its peak.
Watermelon stunt
On April 8, 2016, two BuzzFeed interns created a live stream on Facebook, during which rubber bands were wrapped one by one around a watermelon until the pressure caused it to explode. The Daily Dot compared it to something from America's Funniest Home Videos or by the comedian Gallagher, and "just as stupid-funny, but with incredible immediacy and zero production costs". The video is seen as part of Facebook's strategy to shift to live video, Facebook Live, to counter the rise of Snapchat and Periscope among a younger audience.
Awards and recognition
In 2017, BuzzFeed won Webby Awards for Best News App and Best Interview/Talk Show (for Another Round), and president Greg Coleman was named Publishing Executive of the Year by Digiday.
In 2018, staff of BuzzFeed news was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in their international reporting category for their article that "proved that operatives with apparent ties to Vladimir Putin have engaged in a targeted killing campaign against his perceived enemies on British and American soil". BuzzFeed later won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 in the international reporting category for an investigative series about the Xinjiang internment camps.
See also
In Spanish: BuzzFeed para niños
- Mashable
- Mic
- The Take
- Upworthy
- Vice Media
- Vox Media
