4 ms·

The Eternal Return of BuzzFeed

28 points by samclemens 12y ago

vonklaus 12y ago
Buzzfeed is disrupting the news/entertainment industry and has found an extremely effective way to entice readers and promote virility among its stories and videos. In any other context people would champion this sort of strategy. Extreme growth hacking coupled with a psychological approach to user acquisition. I am not a regular buzzfeed reader, but I have tried to become less cynical about the company. They really are the best at what they do. Hopefully with Dixon's $50mm investment via AH, the company will focus a little more on content.
- ljk 12y ago
  > ...among it's stories and videos its* sorry it's bugging me...
  - vonklaus 12y ago
    Fixed. Thanks.
    - pje 12y ago
      Also guessing you meant "virality" and not "virility", but then again maybe you meant to describe BuzzFeed as having a strong, manly sex drive?
      - vonklaus 12y ago
        I chuckled. I am actually going to leave it as is.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
- markdown 12y ago
  > In any other context people would champion this sort of strategy. Context is important. A middle-school teacher who finds their kids aren't paying attention during a presentation might attract more interest by including a few porn slides. Imagine the virility through the school. There might be an increase in "user acquisition" using this "psychological approach". At the end of the day, it's horseshit. Fucking horseshit.
  - joshkpeterson 12y ago
    The only real alternative is to pay for our news. Buzzfeed does some okay stuff now and then, by the way.
  - vonklaus 12y ago
    look, i'm not here to champion buzzfeed. Context is important, but to be clear I wouldn't compare buzzfeed to sexually assaulting a classroom full of minors.
    - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
      He didn't, because that's not sexual assault. Also because it was an analogy about using titillation.
- georgemcbay 12y ago
  "an extremely effective way to entice readers" ... you might even say they found one weird trick. Traditional news media hates them. You won't believe what they'll do next. I don't directly hate Buzzfeed, but I do hate that due to being so successful much of the rest of the industry has emulated them to the point of near saturation. It is getting nearly impossible to consume web content without constantly being subjected to clickbaity garbage (I realize that Buzzfeed actually produces some decent content, but most of those who clumsily emulate them do not). Of course at the end of the day this is all our fault for being so easily clickbaited by inane stuff.
- feedjoelpie 12y ago
  Let's say you were trying to rationalize why a company's "extreme growth hacking coupled with a psychological approach to user acquisition" was actually good for the world. It's usually not that hard if you want it. Company X provides something that is (arguably) important (to someone), and the marketing means help it reach people. So I tried to put on this hat for a minute, but I cannot for the life of me even intentionally come up with a justification for BuzzFeed. Even if you believe whole-heartedly in general that the end (company getting its service out there) justifies the means (marketing, manipulation)... with BuzzFeed the end and the means are exactly the same thing. It's got all of the societal value of the Jerry Springer show: It's garbage for the sake of providing space to sell garbage.
  - qq66 12y ago
    You can't really value entertainment the way you value something like a machine tool. People who purchase the entertainment consider it its own end, whereas the people who are buying the machine tool will want to know "What other goal will this machine tool help me achieve?"
- solaarphunk 12y ago
  They are disrupting the yellow journalism industry and provide little to no value in any other segment of news. The reason why people are upset here is because they understand exactly how Buzzfeed, Farmville, and other such companies have inserted themselves using these exploits into our lives providing little to no value (but perhaps to some of those around us).
oldmanjay 12y ago
Expound endlessly on the virtues of buzzfeed's journalism if you must. It cannot remove the stench of native advertisement. I will give them no intentional clicks.
Yhippa 12y ago
I banned Buzzfeed as much as I could from Twitter and Facebook. This article made me warm up to them again for a bit so I went to their homepage. After the main content here's a few of the top articles as I see them: Which Porn Star Should You Date? (Get ready for your big D…ate) 12 Gross Smells Every City-Dweller Can Relate To 20 Times Disney Accurately Described Course Registration This 11-Year-Old Kid Produces His Own Music And It’s Insane The One Big Clue Bruce Wayne Gave Gotham That He Was Batman 21 Celebrities That Defintiely Put The “F” In DILF I must be getting old. This is some low-value (but I'm sure highly profitable) content that is good for 99% of the web but me.

28 points by samclemens 12y ago

Buzzfeed is disrupting the news/entertainment industry and has found an extremely effective way to entice readers and promote virility among its stories and videos. In any other context people would champion this sort of strategy. Extreme growth hacking coupled with a psychological approach to user acquisition. I am not a regular buzzfeed reader, but I have tried to become less cynical about the company. They really are the best at what they do. Hopefully with Dixon's $50mm investment via AH, the company will focus a little more on content.

ljk 12y ago
> ...among it's stories and videos its* sorry it's bugging me...
- vonklaus 12y ago
  Fixed. Thanks.
  - pje 12y ago
    Also guessing you meant "virality" and not "virility", but then again maybe you meant to describe BuzzFeed as having a strong, manly sex drive?
    - vonklaus 12y ago
      I chuckled. I am actually going to leave it as is.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
markdown 12y ago
> In any other context people would champion this sort of strategy. Context is important. A middle-school teacher who finds their kids aren't paying attention during a presentation might attract more interest by including a few porn slides. Imagine the virility through the school. There might be an increase in "user acquisition" using this "psychological approach". At the end of the day, it's horseshit. Fucking horseshit.
- joshkpeterson 12y ago
  The only real alternative is to pay for our news. Buzzfeed does some okay stuff now and then, by the way.
- vonklaus 12y ago
  look, i'm not here to champion buzzfeed. Context is important, but to be clear I wouldn't compare buzzfeed to sexually assaulting a classroom full of minors.
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    He didn't, because that's not sexual assault. Also because it was an analogy about using titillation.
georgemcbay 12y ago
"an extremely effective way to entice readers" ... you might even say they found one weird trick. Traditional news media hates them. You won't believe what they'll do next. I don't directly hate Buzzfeed, but I do hate that due to being so successful much of the rest of the industry has emulated them to the point of near saturation. It is getting nearly impossible to consume web content without constantly being subjected to clickbaity garbage (I realize that Buzzfeed actually produces some decent content, but most of those who clumsily emulate them do not). Of course at the end of the day this is all our fault for being so easily clickbaited by inane stuff.
feedjoelpie 12y ago
Let's say you were trying to rationalize why a company's "extreme growth hacking coupled with a psychological approach to user acquisition" was actually good for the world. It's usually not that hard if you want it. Company X provides something that is (arguably) important (to someone), and the marketing means help it reach people. So I tried to put on this hat for a minute, but I cannot for the life of me even intentionally come up with a justification for BuzzFeed. Even if you believe whole-heartedly in general that the end (company getting its service out there) justifies the means (marketing, manipulation)... with BuzzFeed the end and the means are exactly the same thing. It's got all of the societal value of the Jerry Springer show: It's garbage for the sake of providing space to sell garbage.
- qq66 12y ago
  You can't really value entertainment the way you value something like a machine tool. People who purchase the entertainment consider it its own end, whereas the people who are buying the machine tool will want to know "What other goal will this machine tool help me achieve?"
solaarphunk 12y ago
They are disrupting the yellow journalism industry and provide little to no value in any other segment of news. The reason why people are upset here is because they understand exactly how Buzzfeed, Farmville, and other such companies have inserted themselves using these exploits into our lives providing little to no value (but perhaps to some of those around us).

oldmanjay 12y ago

Expound endlessly on the virtues of buzzfeed's journalism if you must. It cannot remove the stench of native advertisement. I will give them no intentional clicks.

Yhippa 12y ago

I banned Buzzfeed as much as I could from Twitter and Facebook. This article made me warm up to them again for a bit so I went to their homepage. After the main content here's a few of the top articles as I see them: Which Porn Star Should You Date? (Get ready for your big D…ate) 12 Gross Smells Every City-Dweller Can Relate To 20 Times Disney Accurately Described Course Registration This 11-Year-Old Kid Produces His Own Music And It’s Insane The One Big Clue Bruce Wayne Gave Gotham That He Was Batman 21 Celebrities That Defintiely Put The “F” In DILF I must be getting old. This is some low-value (but I'm sure highly profitable) content that is good for 99% of the web but me.