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What is BuzzFeed?

It’s a US news and entertainment website that’s changing the rules of the news game. It’s irreverent, entertaining, well-curated and on the ball. Unlike traditional news websites, trending topics are labelled LOL, win, OMG, cute, trashy, WTF.... So, an article like “23 Signs You’re An Awkward Individual” co-exists with “45 Stunning And Bleak Photos Of Life During The Soviet Union”. BuzzFeed addresses 100 million users globally.

Who started it?

Jonah Peretti, the co-founder of popular American news aggregator The Huffington Post, is the main man. The University of California graduate left The Huffington Post in 2011 when AOL bought it.

Is there money in it?

But of course. BuzzFeed raised almost $46m in venture capital till January 2013. And then there are advertorials, which have become a cornerstone of its business model. Big companies have sponsored posts and these are written in a lively way to attract hits. Even movies are being promoted in an innovative way. For example, George Clooney’s forthcoming release The Monuments Men had a sponsored story this week –– “18 WWII-Era Photos To Make You Believe In Love” –– which makes for a great read.

Success recipe?

All kinds of write-ups are there, be it picture articles (“12 Drawings That Totally Definitely Nailed It”), sarcastic stories (“25 Incredibly Gay Things About Russia”), look-back moments (“The 5 Best Things We Learned About Britney Spears From Her 1999 Twist Magazine Questionnaire”), food-related write-ups (“31 Grilled Cheeses That Are Better Than A Boyfriend”), etc. And, it celebrates cats in weird ways — “41 Cats Who Had A Worse Year Than You” and “37 Pictures That Prove Cats Have Hearts Of Gold” — and people love it!

Does it have competition?

Bet your bottom dollar, it does. The Daily Mail website is hugely popular for gossip-related matter. Then there is Vice, which started as a free magazine in 1994. Now it has a major online presence. If BuzzFeed is funny, Vice is bitchy and sarcastic. Example of articles: “One Night at a Palestinian Land-Reclamation Party”, “What I Learned About Style from Shakira's Can’t Remember to Forget You” and “How Marijuana Can Save the NFL”! And fresh blood comes in the form of Bauer Media’s new digital brand The Debrief, which targets the always-connected 20-something woman.

Not just jazz...

It has hired Mark Schoofs, previously a foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, who heads a team of investigative reporters. The editor-in-chief is Ben Smith, who arrived from Politico, in 2011 and is responsible for breaking the news that Senator John McCain would endorse Mitt Romney as the Republicans’ 2012 candidate. So, it’s not just all jazz, there’s serious journalism involved too.

Online style guide…

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BuzzFeed has become the style guide for bloggers and website. So, a small list of things to remember: It’s ‘sideboob’, ‘sidebutt’, ‘batshit’, ‘bitchface’… all without hyphen; it’s ‘Wi-Fi’ and ‘Ziploc’; and write ‘chocolaty’ (not ‘chocolatey’)!

Things we learned from BuzzFeed…

1. Use GIFs, which is a picture format and can only be used online. The format supports animation and places picture frames in a way that somewhat resembles a video, allowing websites to easily put up fun content.

2. Nostalgia is a great marketing tool and BuzzFeed uses it often to recall TV shows from our youth or fun products that don’t exist anymore.

3. Unlike Reddit, which is a text-heavy site, BuzzFeed ensures that pictures say a zillion words.

4. Update frequently. As soon as an event happens, the content is on BuzzFeed within minutes.

5. Share and become popular. Articles on the site can easily be shared using social networks, ensuring that BuzzFeed virgins lose their… you know what!

The best feature?

Quizzes. The quiz topics are super fun. Very relatable (which is your ideal profession), curious (which city should you live in) and quirky (which emoji you are), the quizzes are easy-breezy stressbusters. There is stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise end up asking. It’s therapeutic and addictive.

Finally, is it relevant to India?

Whenever something important happens in India or with Indians, it gets reported –– the 20-year-old girl who was allegedly gang-raped by at least 13 men at the behest of a kangaroo court in a Birbhum village, Supreme Court’s views on same-sex intercourse.... Get?