News site BuzzFeed attracted 85M unique visitors in August,
according to a recent memo from founder and CEO Jonah Peretti. But don't be
fooled into thinking all those people are there for kittens and other memes.
According to The Guardian, BuzzFeed's president and chief
operating officer Jon Steinberg claimed the site is an increasingly important
source of hard news for young people, in an appearance at the MIPCOM conference
in Cannes this
week.
"We feel strongly that traditional media have given up
on young people, and have not made a commitment to tell stories that are interesting
for people under 40 or 50 years old," said Steinberg.
BuzzFeed now has more than 100 full-time writers, with a
growing proportion focusing on news and politics. Steinberg said that around
40% of the site's traffic comes from links shared on Facebook, and 70% from
social sources in general.
"We're bringing more hard news on a relative basis than
a lot of the traditional television networks do now," said Steinberg,
although he also talked about BuzzFeed's partnership with one of those networks
– CNN – on the CNN BuzzFeed YouTube channel.
The alliance sees CNN providing video footage to BuzzFeed,
which then "remixes and recuts" it in a shortform, shareable format
aimed at YouTube's younger audience.
Steinberg encouraged news organisations to think about
social sharing throughout their production processes, rather than as an
afterthought.
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