For more than ten years, BuzzFeed has been looking for its economic model like a Périgord pig its truffle. Today, the beast is running out of steam. In recent days, Buzzfeed stock price has fallen around of 1 dollarflirting with the infamous category of what are called penny stocks, those Nasdaq ghost ships. Its quest for the perfect martingale, its founder Jonah Peretti had nevertheless preached with talent to the point of making it a doxa that inspired the media around the world. Quick return on a bubble.
In 2006, Peretti worked at Huffington Postwhen he created a laboratory intended to boost the audience of the information site by multiplying the virality of the content – hence the name of BuzzFeed. From this will be born a powerful algorithm that will make the fortune of HuffPost. The BuzzFeed team is second to none at creating and disseminating content that works and proliferating it to others, garnering audience and advertising revenue along the way. These come from the brands for which BuzzFeed produces bespoke articles and videos, and which are distributed everywhere on social networks. This is the explosion of what is called “distributed content”.
On paper, the mechanics are amazing. No need to have a site since broadcasters are everywhere: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snap. On this idea, Buzzfeed raises heaps of money: left with 3.5 million dollars brought by Hearst Ventures – the venture capital division of the giant of the press magazine – the charismatic Jonah Peretti attracts all the big investors of Silicon Valley and New York. We are in 2014. It is the time when one of the investors in BuzzFeed and his multiple clones gratifies the author of this column who came to visit him in New York with a condescending “you did not understand anything, l future of media is us. [les médias traditionnels] you are dead”.
More expensive than New York Times
In total, BuzzFeed raises $700 million and will reach a valuation of $1.5 billion, as much as the New York Times at the same time. With this mattress, he created a real content factory where 1,700 people work between Los Angeles for videos and New York for articles. It is true that these hardly give migraines: they are mostly listicles (content in list format) addressing fundamental questions such as “the 25 worst plastic surgeries”, “34 reasons to celebrate”, “19 photos of possessed children [par le Malin]”…
At the same time, BuzzFeed is creating a solid, ambitious editorial team with investigative journalists who will release scoops that have won several journalistic awards. Obviously, the audience for this quality production represents only a tiny percentage of the rest. Moreover, the public does not even perceive it. The Pew Research Center, which periodically measures the perceived credibility of the media, will place BuzzFeed at the bottom of its ranking for several years in a row.
Whatever. Peretti never ceased to theorize his principle of dissemination to the point of making it a universal encyclical adopted by the media all over the world. Major generalist titles began to distribute their content on all possible platforms, creating specific teams intended to force-feed the ogre of social media. But the audiences thus generated are fickle. They are the opposite of what a news media normally seeks to capture, which are loyal, well-identified users, and preferably belonging to commercially profitable socio-demographic groups.
Content produced with ChatGPT
Unfortunately for BuzzFeed, the profits that its formidable valuation held out have not materialized, despite a series of acquisitions (including that of its parent company, the HuffingtonPost). We had to cut everywhere. Starting with the noble part of his writing (the one that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 2021). BuzzFeed was also caught in the implosion of Spac, these financial shells allowing an IPO. This one went badly with a price divided by 10 over the last six months. Jumping on all that glitters, the ex-star announced at the beginning of March that some of his content would soon be produced with ChatGPT and that in the meantime, his team should produce even more. The truffle pig is still searching, but its nose is dulling.