BuzzFeed

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BuzzFeed, Inc.

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 2006
Seat New York City , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
management Jonah Peretti ( CEO )
sales 170 million US dollars
Branch Media company
Website buzzfeed.com
As of December 31, 2015

Logo until September 2019

BuzzFeed is a 2006 founded American media company based in the Flatiron District in New York City . The buzzfeed.com website is one of the most popular media portals in English-speaking countries with 150 million visitors per month. The form of journalism practiced there is a mixture of blog , news ticker and online magazine. Most of the articles are rich in pictures and videos and are listed as listicles . In August 2014 the company had over 1,300 employees.

History and background

BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti (co-founder of The Huffington Post ) with the claim The Media Company for the Social Age , whereby social means the social networks on the Internet . Despite the fact that the editorial team has grown in the meantime, the majority of the articles are user-generated , i.e. created by registered visitors to the website.

In its early days, BuzzFeed almost exclusively presented entertaining, quickly consumable content that was designed to be distributed ( shared ) as directly as possible in social networks . Cat videos were typical for this . Since Ben Smith was appointed editor-in-chief in 2012, the editorial team and content have been continuously expanded. Today BuzzFeed covers a wide range of topics and is increasingly positioning itself against the classic newspaper portals on the Internet.

In 2014, BuzzFeed achieved sales of over $ 100 million for the first time, according to Jonah Peretti. A sales target of $ 250 million was targeted for 2015, with $ 170 million achieved. Simultaneously with the release of the 2015 figures, the revenue target was halved from $ 500 million in 2016 to $ 250 million.

The website reached more attention in January 2017 after on this from the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele called a " dirty dossier " ( dirty dossier was published). Before that, the focus was on Russian influence on the 2016 election campaign .

Due to economic difficulties, BuzzFeed left around 200 employees in spring 2019, about 15 percent of the workforce.

financing

So far, Buzzfeed has been funded with a total of 450 million US dollars in venture capital. Among other things, the venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz invested 50 million dollars in August 2014 . The company value of Buzzfeed was put at a value of 850 million US dollars in the course of the investment. In 2017, the company was valued at $ 1.5 billion. The largest shareholder is NBCUniversal with 33 percent.

Buzzfeed completely dispenses with classic advertising on its website. Instead, the company relies on viral marketing and native advertising . With the latter, paying customers can publish their own articles on Buzzfeed.

Regional branches

BuzzFeed has a regional branch in Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom. The branch in France was closed in 2018 and the branch in Spain in 2019.

The German branch based in Berlin was launched on October 15, 2014. The editor-in-chief was Juliane Leopold until January 2016 . She was followed by Daniel Drepper in April 2017, after the position had not been filled for over a year. In 2019, BuzzFeed editor Pascale Müller was awarded the Nannen Prize in the Best Investigative Achievement category. In August 2020, the publisher Dirk Ippen took over the German offshoot.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ team
  2. ↑ Ranj Brandt: Buzzfeed missed big on its ~ $ 250 million revenue target last year, and this year isn't looking much better. In: Business Insider . April 12, 2016. Retrieved April 29, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Sramana Mitra: The Buzz About BuzzFeed: Some Reflections. August 20, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2017 .
  4. ↑ The term Listicle probably originated from BuzzFeed.
  5. ↑ a b c Thomas Jahn: Buzzfeed founder wants to cash in. In: Handelsblatt . March 30, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2017 .
  6. ^ Jonah Peretti: Buzzfeed passes $ 100 million in revenue for 2014. In: Politico . November 25, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Sarah Dean: Ex-MI6 spy 'worked for nothing' to get Trump 'dirty dossier' out. In: DailyMail . January 14, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Kim Sengupta: Ex-MI6 agent so worried by his Donald Trump discoveries he started working without pay. In: The Independent . January 13, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2017 .
  9. ↑ a b "BuzzFeed" dismisses 200 employees taz.de, January 28, 2019
  10. ↑ Mike Isaac: 50 Million New Reasons BuzzFeed Wants to Take Its Content Far Beyond Lists. In: The New York Times . August 10, 2014, accessed April 29, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Alison Griswold: What Makes BuzzFeed Worth $ 850 Million? In: Slate . August 11, 2014, accessed April 29, 2017 .
  12. ↑ BuzzFeed's International Editions buzzfeed.com
  13. ↑ Meow! sueddeutsche.de, October 16, 2014
  14. ^ Editor-in-chief Juliane Leopold listens to spiegel.de, January 21, 2016
  15. ↑ Daniel Drepper becomes editor-in-chief spiegel.de, March 31, 2017
  16. ↑ Nannen Prize 2019: These are the winners stern.de, May 25, 2019
  17. ^ Publisher Ippen takes over BuzzFeed Germany spiegel.de, August 24, 2020