[asaramis]

This is a perfect combination of every short-sighted, angry old media, and old man rant I've ever come across. I mean, to go from hating on BuzzFeed to somehow ending up on the "Africa is one single country and let's help it" trope is quite impressive.

Best article that sums up what Buzzfeed is really about, and why I believe it is incredible for the future of journalism is this piece by Felix Salmon. Basically, he makes the point that Buzzfeed is in effect a massive advertising agency, and their content efforts are all experiments to better understand how to reach younger people. They then make money off of selling that expertise to brands.

That is a much more sustainable, legitimate form of funding a news business vs. the world of doing anything you can to get eyeballs to your page and selling ads around it. It means constant experimentation in the fields of communication and storytelling built on the back of an incredible technology company.

The best part of the entire Filloux piece, it was Chris Dixon who led the investment (someone pointed that out nicely in the comments). Does he not even realize that VC firms almost always have internal dissension and investments aren't unanimous? He has zero way of knowing Ben Horowitz's take on the investment.

https://medium.com/@felixsalmon/normally-when-some-big-deal-...