BuzzFeed pioneered a news model built purely on social sharing across mobile platforms

Evidence

BuzzFeed billed itself as the “first true social news organization,” which meant it was designed for a post-Facebook and post-Twitter world, where news gained currency by being shared on social networks, through newsfeeds, Twitter feeds, and the like. It was also designed to be read on the now ubiquitous mobile platforms; by 2015, 60 percent of its traffic was via phones and other wireless devices (including 21 percent from Snapchat)—the key to success was now getting people to share stuff socially from mobile. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1066

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader attention-economy history in this book spanning earlier chapters on print, radio, and TV advertising. — connects to: BuzzFeed accidentally unified trivia and news through the same viral machinery — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 518; Blogs shifted attention harvesting from broadcast to peer sharing — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 911

Broader Connections

• BuzzFeed accidentally unified trivia and news through the same viral machinery #exemplifies (0.85) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 518
• Blogs shifted attention harvesting from broadcast to peer sharing #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 911