BuzzFeed gets serious with its news reporting

BuzzFeed, widely known for its social media friendly quizzes and lists as well as its celebrity related scoops, is getting serious with its news portal "BuzzFeed News". The new site flaunts a new design which looks very much like a newspaper with a black and white colour palette.The current pieces on the “BuzzFeed News” website are more on the global political and cultural issues. According to Adweek, the topics are curated by editors based on audience data on what they are interested on. The article adds that while the new news site will not have sponsored ads, it will be using programmatic advertising, “including exploring brands doing full-page takeovers.”BuzzFeed News has a new look and new home: https://t.co/V0GX2lSTNLNow, you’ll find all our news coverage in one place — from investigations with impact to trending social news pic.twitter.com/I2Bi6qdV8E— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) July 18, 2018Katie Rayford, manager of communications, BuzzFeed News said that it received feedback from its audience and partners that the mix of content was “confusing” in the older BuzzFeed webpage. This then led to the idea of coming up with a "distinct" brand called BuzzFeed News and an updated homepage design.“I’m very excited to share that we are extending this product and design work to BuzzFeed News, which continues to distinguish itself with world-class investigative reporting, whether it’s earning recognition as a Pulitzer finalist, revealing the hidden death toll after a natural disaster in Puerto Rico, or exposing Kevin Spacey and documenting R. Kelly's exploitation of young women,” CEO Jonah Peretti said.“As BuzzFeed News expands further into new areas like original series, we want to continue to elevate its look, feel, and user experience,” he added.Towards the end of 2016, BuzzFeed and NBCUniversal inked a massive deal. NBCUniversal made an additional US$200 million investment to expand the strategic partnership between the two companies and to fund the growth of BuzzFeed’s industry leading news and entertainment network.With this investment, NBCUniversal and BuzzFeed will extend their advertising sales relationship. BuzzFeed will then collaborate with NBCUniversal on production and social distribution for NBCUniversal’s Content Studio, which delivers platform-specific, short-form digital video content to advertisers. In addition, NBCUniversal will also represent BuzzFeed’s inventory to advertisers.