Jonah Peretti

BuzzFeed took another lap around its AI-related talking points as its advertising business took another lap around the drain.

In today’s newsletter: The “user agent” concept is dead; principal-based buying is just arbitrage by another name; and a deep dive into BuzzFeed’s doomed acquisition of Complex.

As stiffer competition between social media companies shuts out publishers that depend on social traffic, BuzzFeed’s ad revenue drops 35%.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Variation On A Theme Google launched a new Performance Max search feature called “search themes,” a rare opportunity to learn from the black box that is PMax campaigns. Search themes are broad terms that can inform targeting, even if the company doesn’t bid […]

BuzzFeed is “laser focused” on using AI-generated content to drive audiences to its owned-and-operated platforms and away from social media, CEO Jonah Peretti told investors.

BuzzFeed is sticking to its conviction that journalism is old news and influencer-led video and generative AI are the future.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. High Voltage Media Last week, we mentioned Volta, a company that manufactures electric car charging stations, in our new weekly Commerce Media newsletter as an apt example of the strange inventory grab-bag that sometimes exists behind a retail media platform. For Volta Media, […]

BuzzFeed hopes its investments in trendy tech like generative AI and short-form vertical video, with a bigger focus on commerce, will eventually pay dividends.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. BuzzCuts BuzzFeed is laying off 12% of its workforce, Variety reports, based on an SEC filing. The reduction will apparently help BuzzFeed “weather an economic downturn that I believe will extend well into 2023,” writes CEO Jonah Peretti in a memo.  BuzzFeed’s revenue […]

As BuzzFeed struggles with advertiser uncertainty and a drop in user engagement, it reported flat Q3 ad revenue. Advertising revenue was $50 million, matching last year’s Q3. Ad revenue growth decelerated compared to Q2, “driven by ongoing price compression and uncertainty around consumer demand,” said BuzzFeed CFO Felicia DellaFortuna.

As audiences shift away from Facebook, BuzzFeed is betting its investments in short-form vertical video for social media platforms like TikTok and long-form video for streaming will yield big returns, CEO Jonah Peretti said during the publisher’s first earnings presentation since going public in December.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. BuzzKill As he prepares to take his company public via SPAC, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has made concessions to irate shareholder NBCUniversal that could put him in the hot seat, according to The Wall Street Journal. To summarize: NBCU stands to lose money in […]

BuzzFeed, the ultrapopular purveyor of listicles and viral content, began with a question: “What does it take for something to spread on traditional media without the cost structure associated with traditional media?” The publisher’s CEO and founder, Jonah Peretti, recalled onstage at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview last week the way the company originated as “almost a […]