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Buzzfeed News never understood the medium. They couldn't support themselves. It turns out chasing social media and search clicks for free ad-supported journalis

Buzzfeed News never understood the medium. They couldn't support themselves. It turns out chasing social media and search clicks for free ad-supported journalism is not a great business model. The freemium models of the New York Times and Washington Post are the ones that are cleaning up. You get a few free ad-supported articles a month to pique your interest, and if you are really into it, you need to pay a subscription. But Buzzfeed never had a brand people would pay for. Buzzfeed, the non-news part, certainly knows how to produce cheap content, which makes it easier to ad support. They also do sponsored content. But I'd hesitate to say that Buzzfeed understood the medium. They knew how to game traffic. They didn't know how to make money. A lot of news outlets chased clicks. They thought they understood the medium. Making money and supporting yourself is the ultimate understanding the medium. Turns out The Gray Lady understands it the best.

a4isms 3y ago
> It turns out chasing social media and search clicks for free ad-supported journalism is not a great business model. And it's an even worse business model if you rely on social media for your business model and one day Twitter (or any other platform eventually) decides that if you're going to make money sharecropping in their fields, you need to start turning over revenue to the landlord in the shape of checkmark payola for reach and gatekeeping fees for access to the API. It's the classic platform enshittification end-game: Social media embraced companies like Buzzfeed for providing the content that they used to build critical mass, then turned around and viewed them as ATMs to be plundered. Same story as app developers in walled gardens.
- astrange 3y ago
  Twitter never drove any traffic to news media. Facebook did, but Twitter was just where the journalists themselves hung out and sometimes collected stories.

a4isms 3y ago

> It turns out chasing social media and search clicks for free ad-supported journalism is not a great business model. And it's an even worse business model if you rely on social media for your business model and one day Twitter (or any other platform eventually) decides that if you're going to make money sharecropping in their fields, you need to start turning over revenue to the landlord in the shape of checkmark payola for reach and gatekeeping fees for access to the API. It's the classic platform enshittification end-game: Social media embraced companies like Buzzfeed for providing the content that they used to build critical mass, then turned around and viewed them as ATMs to be plundered. Same story as app developers in walled gardens.

astrange 3y ago
Twitter never drove any traffic to news media. Facebook did, but Twitter was just where the journalists themselves hung out and sometimes collected stories.