4 ms·

I think that BuzzFeed's quality will drastically improve in time. To me, they're building a platform for journalism/media. They might be in the nascent stage

by pkfrank 12y ago

I think that BuzzFeed's quality will drastically improve in time. To me, they're building a platform for journalism/media. They might be in the nascent stage where LinkBait is a dominant strategy, but I'd bet that high-quality journalism will become an increasingly integral part of BuzzFeed's business as it matures.

afafsd 12y ago
Why should they succeed at making money by putting out high-quality journalism where others have failed? Quality journalism doesn't pay in a dollars in to dollars out basis. A carefully-researched article that takes a week-long trip to the Congo to write will get no more and possibly fewer clicks than "Ten Amazing Shark Facts That Will Make You Shit Your Pants" that takes twenty minutes on wikipedia.
- pkfrank 12y ago
  Well, perhaps the linkbait articles that you describe will help offset the cost of eventually producing high-quality journalism.
freshhawk 12y ago
That's an optimistic view, especially as they are moving swiftly in the opposite direction with their "native advertising" push. That's why they are an attractive investment, and that is anti-journalism.
- Torn 12y ago
  He might be right though. They're probably hedging their bets here. They have more in-depth content but I imagine it's a tiny part of their overall traffic: http://www.buzzfeed.com/longform http://www.buzzfeed.com/longform
billmalarky 12y ago
That's the path Buzzfeed has purported to take since the beginning, and as much as I dislike their current offering, they have struck true to that path. I remember when buzzfeed first came out and it was nothing but the lists of images stolen from reddit (pretty similar to 9gag). Now they have a decent amount of original content, and I suspect their goal is to improve the quality of content over time. That said I think they will always be more entertainment focused but there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that.

by pkfrank 12y ago

afafsd 12y ago

Why should they succeed at making money by putting out high-quality journalism where others have failed? Quality journalism doesn't pay in a dollars in to dollars out basis. A carefully-researched article that takes a week-long trip to the Congo to write will get no more and possibly fewer clicks than "Ten Amazing Shark Facts That Will Make You Shit Your Pants" that takes twenty minutes on wikipedia.

pkfrank 12y ago
Well, perhaps the linkbait articles that you describe will help offset the cost of eventually producing high-quality journalism.

freshhawk 12y ago

That's an optimistic view, especially as they are moving swiftly in the opposite direction with their "native advertising" push. That's why they are an attractive investment, and that is anti-journalism.

Torn 12y ago
He might be right though. They're probably hedging their bets here. They have more in-depth content but I imagine it's a tiny part of their overall traffic: http://www.buzzfeed.com/longform http://www.buzzfeed.com/longform

billmalarky 12y ago

That's the path Buzzfeed has purported to take since the beginning, and as much as I dislike their current offering, they have struck true to that path. I remember when buzzfeed first came out and it was nothing but the lists of images stolen from reddit (pretty similar to 9gag). Now they have a decent amount of original content, and I suspect their goal is to improve the quality of content over time. That said I think they will always be more entertainment focused but there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that.