Founder’s Big Idea to Revive BuzzFeed’s Fortunes? A Merger With Rivals

Nov 19, 2018 · 14 comments
Deborah Drake (Bellevue, WA)
What a striking closing quote: “A company that doesn’t generate money isn’t a company that gets to do very much,” he said. “From a business standpoint, money is a means to an end.” BuzzFeed (in most of my experiences) is appealing to that place in the mind that seeks a break from deep thinking. I'd sooner watch a soap opera like GH because the plots recycle characters, themes, and occasionally address current societal issues in equally ridiculous ways. It is a generational thing, I suspect. The experiment...that became a business model...that depends on appealing primarily to the lower common denominator...does not capture or sustain my interest. Stupefying and humoring viewers and making it easy to circulate lusticles and silly videos to friends doesn't make the choice of content valued content. A la Simon Sinek, I ask, "What was the original golden why (soul/essence) for existing in the first place?" Mr BuzzFeed, if money is a means to an end then what is or was your end goal beyond simply making more money? What was the Grand Vision? was it left behind, forgotten, or did one ever exist?
Uhearditfromhank (New York)
By Golly have I been missing something? BUZZFEED? Ten years, billions of dollars and still searching for relevance. Quality content might be part of the solution.
Bos (Boston)
Buzzfeed's clickbait is the precursor of fake news. While size matters, quality precedes quantity
Ben T (New York City)
BuzzFeed is searching desperately for an exit. BuzzFeed is nice when its free but nobody is going to pay for it and Facebook is never going to share ad revenue with them. BuzzFeed is still an experiment thats not working. When you are operating for 10 years without profits you dont have a business. Its amazing they were able to raise $500m ((1/2 a billion dollars)) to play around for 10 years.
Southamptoner (East End)
I, for one, always judge a news organization on the quality of the cookware they sell as a side hustle. Ps. BuzzFeed is terrible.
HKGuy (Hell's Kitchen)
It was inevitable that eventually these youth-oriented news sites would merge. Way too much duplication of effort and cannibalizing going after the same demographic. A good idea.
jhanzel (Glenview, Illinois)
I guess, at 64, I am out of this loop. I always thought a "publisher" was a company that actually look for great books to print and promote and ... publish. "As seen on TV ..." for income ?????
Mrs Whit (USA)
They simply do not do the basics of business well. TRY to advertise with them. We did. Sometimes, it's not the esoterica that dooms a company. Just good old execution.
Mystery Lits (somewhere)
Since Buzzfeed, Vox and Vice are the cancer of the internet... it is no surprise they are desperate to keep their disease afloat any way they can.
Nick (Manhattan)
All of those companies survive by leaching on the extreme leftist views that teens now see as “empowering” which care about everyone. That’s not real life, when people figure that out they stop reading buzz-feed because they realize how fake it is.
Kenny (Los Angeles)
Guy who garners celebrity challenging major corporation on labor conditions starts company where he refuses to allow employees to unionize, then suggests union between his media company and other media companies to challenge conditions laid out by facebook. Does he not see the irony? Maybe he should pay his employees what they're worth, allow his content creators to have credit for their contributions, and not let BuzzFeed own their likeness before he starts complaining about how unfair Facebook is being. Also, donations to a for-profit company? This guy is ridiculous
JamesHK (philadelphia)
The Huffpost Buzzfeed Vice and Vox all companies the world would be better without. Mr. Peretti didn't learn from is his time at huffpost you don't create content you let others spend the resources to do actual reporting then use free labor(college kids) and to copy paste comment
HKGuy (Hell's Kitchen)
@JamesHK Buzzfeed is far from a lazy aggregator like, say, Newsweek. It does a lot of original reporting.
Jon (DC)
Note that Jonah Peretti is the brother of the very funny Chelsea Peretti, who has given more to the world than Buzzfeed (in its endless obnoxiousness) has taken away.