Smith to Continue Writing Weekly for POLITICO

New York, December 12, 2011 – BuzzFeed, the rapidly expanding social media site, has hired pioneering political reporter and blogger Ben Smith as its editor-in-chief, where he will expand editorial coverage, hiretalented reporters and launch new content sections.

Ben Smith will join the management team in New York led by Jonah Peretti, co-founder of BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post.

“There is nothing more exciting for journalism and reporting than the social web,” said Mr. Smith. “Social media is what moves a story.  It has become the primary way people, from plugged-in insiders to casual readers, get their news. BuzzFeed is the best in the world at distributing content on social sites, and it is a tremendous opportunity to join BuzzFeed -- and its millions of readers -- to build a new model for high-quality reporting."

"Social is the new starting point for content sites,” said Mr. Peretti.

“Ben and I will build the definitive social publishing site with

content that spreads fluidly across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit,

StumbleUpon and all other social platforms. In the past year, BuzzFeed has grown from 8 million monthly unique visitors to over 20M and we are excited to continue this growth with Ben leading our editorial team."

“The baton has been passed from print to the traditional web to social,” said Kenneth Lerer, BuzzFeed Chairman. “Social sites are where everyone is getting their news, entertainment, and information and BuzzFeed’s technology platform, combined with original reporting will accelerate this massive shift.”

Smith, who lives in Brooklyn, will start at BuzzFeed on January 1, 2012.

Smith will maintain his longtime relationship with POLITICO, where he has been a senior political writer for five years and will also write weekly on politics for POLITICO.

"I am thrilled that I'll continue to be part of POLITICO's coverage of the 2012 election," said Smith. "It's the best place in America to be a political reporter."

BuzzFeed, a leading social media site featuring the hottest, most social content on the web, has seen record traffic lately, as the world shifts towards social content.  More here: http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/12/how-buzzfeed-got-its-biggest-traffic-day-ever/

BuzzFeed investors include Softbank, Hearst Interactive, RRE Ventures, Ken Lerer, Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, and John Johnson.

Ben Smith has been a reporter for the New York Sun and New York Observer. He also worked as a political columnist for the New York Daily News. Since 2007, Mr. Smith has worked as a senior political writer for POLITICO.  Smith was recently profiled in the Columbia Journalism Review as a new breed of reporter, who merges journalistic values with digital fluency. More here: http://www.cjr.org/feature/immediate_returns.php?page=all&print=true

Media Contact:

Alice Suh

BuzzFeed

alice@buzzfeed.com

212.431.7464

mobile: 310.210.8122

This week's news of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries' divorce came as a SHOCK!  Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration...

In any case, the BuzzFeed office headed to the Kardasian's DASH clothing store in SOHO, NYC for a candle-light vigil.  With flowers, candles, signs, and a guitar in hand, the BuzzFeed team gathered their emotions together. Somewhere between belting "Let It Be" and "I Want It That Way", the BuzzFeed divorce vigil was picked up by a few TV shows and great publishers.  Check them out here:

Huffington Post

Fashionista

The Fashion Spot

Also, feel free to look at some of our own coverage of the event:

Most Heartbreaking Photos From the Vigil

Vigil Reactions

They say you can’t guarantee that something will go viral. And they are right, for the most part.

But you can learn a hell of a lot from things that have gone viral in the past.

This isn’t about resting on laurels, or recycling ideas, or gaming the system.

This is about seeing what’s done well before, and thinking of new ways to appeal to the same logic that made it so successful. Let's look at an example:

Back in March of ‘11, Donna created a post about real bon mots from some of history’s sharpest wits: 21 Scathingly Witty Insults By Famous People

It did well initially, but grew from there into a social sharing phenomenon.

To date, it has well over a million views, putting at No. 9 in the Viral Traffic category of the BuzzFeed All-Time Internet Hall Of Fame.

A big success, by any measure, it still gets a few thousand views every day.

So what is it about this post that appeals to people? Look at its components — it’s a list with a clear theme, fun to look at, funny, smart. It would reflect well on anyone who shared it, and if you came across it in StumbleUpon (it’s in the Humor category there), you’d be sure to give it a thumbs up. It’s a nice post that brings together wit, emotion, and information.

So how to follow it up? Recently, a young man named Jack Shepherd thought he’d try just that — the result?

This often happens with a pre-tested idea: It hit the internet pretty hard right out of the gate, with a great performance on Reddit. And while it doesn’t have much in the way of StumbleUpon traffic yet, we’re predicting a pretty bright future for it.

With our huge catalog of great posts, we’ve got a goldmine of material. It’s a different kind of content than our newsy, meme-y stuff, but fills an important role in the BuzzFeed and web ecosystem, and we can do it better than anyone. Time to hit the Buzz mines, editors, and craft some posts based on our biggest hits.

Tomorrow, Thursday 10/13,  BuzzFeed's President, Jon Steinberg, will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC.  Steinberg will be discussing BuzzFeed's leadership in Social Advertising and the importance of branded content.  Read up on his talk here, and if you are registered for the Expo please join us at 11:45!

BuzzFeed participated in and strongly supported last week’s Advertising Week.  Thank you all for coming out! BuzzFeed was represented on three different panels, and we also sponsored a seminar on Supersharers and Social Advertising.  Below is an overview of the news coverage we received over the course of the week. Enjoy.

Before Advertising Week officially kicked off, Jon Steinberg, President, was interviewed for the Advertising Week Blog to take a deeper dive on BuzzFeed.  He discussed the magic behind BuzzFeed’s viral content and how BuzzFeed translates this for advertisers.  Please see the full article here.

Steinberg was also featured on two panels during Advertising Week: Local Matters… More Than Ever and Do Agencies Need To Think More Like Tech Companies?    The latter caught the attention of AdWeek who discussed Steinberg’s additional question: do tech startups need to act more like agencies?  Read the full article here:

Andy Wiedlin, our Chief Revenue Officer, brought BuzzFeed into the ring with other social media leaders such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Groupon in one of the hottest panels of the week, Masters of Monetization. Both CNBC and the Wall Street Journal shed some more light on this panel.  The CNBC article, written by CNBC anchor Julia Boorstin, focused on how the panelists are getting their advertisers to try new things, as well as how they are educating marketers in this ever-changing arena - read here.  On the other hand, a lot of the panel discussion was about getting brands to become storytellers; the WSJ highlighted this topic in its coverage- read here.

Our final event, held last Thursday, was our seminar: Supersharing and Social Advertising, presented by Jonah Peretti, our founder and CEO, along with Darren Herman, Chief Digital Media Officer of kbs+p/Media Kitchen.  These two teamed up to show what BuzzFeed is capable of in terms of social media, as well as how these qualities are able to create innovative possibilites for our advertisers.  This evolved into a discussion of the necessity of socializing advertising: turning ads and brands into relatable, shareable, content.  You can watch the session here:

AW8 - PwC - Supersharing and Social Advertising... by advertisingweek

We were even the technology sponsor for the Ad Walk of Fame contest.

It was a great week, and our thanks to our friends at Stillwell Partners for organizing!