Chapter 1790 The Originator

The great thing about Pound is that it can integrate the spread of the content across all channels based on the unique URL of each piece of content, and count the spread process, allowing Buzzfeed to better understand the audience.

One of the functions of Hive is to record the editing ideas of each piece of content on different platforms, that is, the company's internal content database and statistical system.

At the same time, Buzzfeed also has an editorial team of more than 200 people, covering multiple fields of ZZ, business, entertainment, and travel, so that the content does not just stay in the publishing process, but will reprocess the content and tailor it to different social media. Platform features reorganize content to fit the browsing habits of users of that platform.

At one time, BuzzFeed covered more than 30 publishing channels around the world, including Facebook and even polar bear social network VK and communication tool Telegram. 75% of its content was published on other platforms instead of its own website.

This is also the reason why Buzzfeed was always a unicorn rather than a giant in the previous life. The reason why Yang Cheng was able to make this model bigger and stronger was also because he changed Buzzfeed’s operating model. It is better to build your own platform than to rely on other people’s faces. Much more.

The most critical thing is that BuzzFeed has always been criticized for the fact that all of its revenue comes from the advertising business. It is hoped that advertisers can also experience viral expansion.

But its income has never been ideal. Its annual income is only more than 100 million US dollars. This is just income, and its profitability is not optimistic. Even if it was once valued at close to 1.8 billion US dollars, but compare it with the current headlines, you will know What a shame Buzzfeed used to be.

A classic example of a good hand played badly.

Yang Cheng retracted his thoughts and said doubtfully, "Have you ever heard of someone talking about it~"

Sanford invited Yang Cheng to sit down and chat. He had no choice but to do it. He was too curious. Yang Cheng sat down, but he didn't forget to ask Donna to take care of Luo Yue. By the way, he explained that he might not be able to leave for the time being.

"Not long ago, a RB team came to Columbia Pictures. It was said that they were from the investment department of the parent company Sony. I thought they were here to invest in the entertainment industry. Unexpectedly, they actually asked my colleagues about Buzzfeed, an unknown company. I I swear, I've never heard of an Internet company like this on the West Coast before.

Out of curiosity, I asked my secretary to pay a little attention to the progress of the matter. A few days later, news came that RB’s investment team had reached a financing agreement with the other party, injecting 50 million U.S. dollars. Facebook also participated in the financing. The specific details I don't know about the share allocation.

But because I was too curious, what kind of company was it?

The most important reason why it can attract so many powerful investors is that it has never been famous before.

After doing some research, I found out that this is an Internet company that is highly similar to Toutiao. The founder was Jonah Peretti, one of the former bosses of the Huffington Post. He casually founded it 10 years ago, but he had no experience with it before. With this name, it has been in the free-range stage.

Not long after the birth of Toutiao, Jonah Peretti seemed to have found a development idea. He still recruited an operation team to develop his own algorithms and engines. Of course, I don’t understand these, but the technology is similar to the Toutiao app anyway.

They have developed rapidly in the past two years. Relying on the Facebook platform, they have accumulated a large number of users. However, due to financial problems, they have not made major strides in development. But now, funds will no longer be an issue hindering their development. "

Listening to Sanford's narration, Yang Cheng frowned deeply. In his previous life, he was asked by his boss to study buzzfeed's operating model, so he worked hard and had an in-depth understanding of this company.

The story of this company begins with the "Nike Incident" in 2001.

Back then, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti asked the Nike factory to print the word "sweatshop" on his shoes and was rejected. He emailed his conversation with Nike to 12 friends. These 12 friends Then it was forwarded to other people, and it spread to tens, hundreds, and thousands. In the end, it was read by millions of people across the United States.

This was far beyond Jonah Peretti’s expectations, and through this event, sharing and virality planted a seed in his brain.

Then came BuzzBot, the instant messaging client, which was also the first product developed by BuzzFeed Labs.

It checks hundreds of blogs through algorithms and sends users links to the most popular event information of the day. However, as the number of users increases, BuzzBot feels "burdened" and "fatigued". It is too hard to push the hottest events to each user every day. .

So BuzzFeed instead built a website to post links to the information BuzzBot discovered every day.

In fact, according to Jonah Peretti's idea, he feels that BuzzBot is doing a good job, but it would be better if it needs someone to help it build a link framework.

Not long after, he welcomed his first editor, Peggy Wang. You can tell from his name that she was a Chinese-American. In her previous life, she served as the editorial director of BuzzFeed, helping BuzzBot manage daily links.

At first, BuzzFeed would publish five or six links every day, some of which were attributed to BuzzBot, and others to Peggy Wang.

In the early days of BuzzFeed, most sharing was between friends. As the site slowly attracted users, bloggers began to look for the resources they wanted from BuzzFeed.

A few years later, BuzzFeed's monthly revenue reached $600,000, and its posts were often cited by well-known bloggers, which attracted the attention of advertisers.

Jonah Peretti has been searching for the essence of virality.

The first BuzzFeed post that went viral was called "Girl in Disaster" - a little girl showing a weird smile in front of a house that was destroyed by fire.

In addition, the editors cut out the girl's photos and placed her in other crime scenes. The girl's weird smile actually didn't feel out of place in different scenes. In this case, BuzzFeed not only looked for the most popular topics, but also Also involved in producing Hot Topics.

Later, BuzzFeed discovered another big killer of popularity - pets, which are cute pets.

Facts have proved that humans cannot resist the cuteness of cats and dogs. As long as there are photos of these furry little guys, they will be spread more widely.

In short, Buzzfeed has discovered popular elements time and time again and forcibly bound its content to attract users' attention. It has created viral spreads time and time again with its easy-to-understand content and simple and crude "clickbait".

Just like "Crazy Skirt", suddenly one day, everyone in the world is discussing the color of the skirt.

The debate went viral, and BuzzFeed was unable to cope with the volume of web traffic for a short period of time.

To put it bluntly, the key point of viral articles is to be short, concise, easy to understand, and add "clickbait". Of course, if you want to make the viewing effect better, you also need a lot of pictures.

Of course, all this has now been inherited by Toutiao app, and it is used even more crazily.

Nine Heavens God Emperor

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