The New BuzzFeed

Back Story

BuzzFeed Started as a Buzz Aggregator

But Really It Was a Viral R&D Lab

How & Why Do Things Spread On The Web?

Viral Media Science

• After collecting hundreds of thousands of pieces of content, we noticed that all viral content has something in common

• Working with Duncan Watts (BuzzFeed Science Advisor) we developed ViralRank –an elegant way to measure virality

• This discovery made us realize that BuzzFeed could become a much bigger business

ViralRank

R=ßz• ViralRank measures the “social reproduction

rate” of media

• It is the key metric to show what is getting shared and linked on the social, realtime web

• PageRank is great for identifying relevant content, ViralRank is great for discovering exciting content that is spreading quickly

The Viral Multiplier Effect

• The higher the value of R, the bigger the multiplier effect

• ViralRank shows which content consumers want to share, link, and spread through word-of-mouth

• Then our technology optimizes promotion of content based on these values

Time

R > 1 R = 1

R < 1

Site GrowthJan 2008 – Feb 2010

Over 1000% Growth From 600K to over 7M

BuzzFeed.com Unique Visitors

Over 7M in past 31 days

BuzzFeed Tracking

• built tracking for ourselves

• publishers found it useful too

Publishers Loved Viral Tracking

Network GrowthJan 2009 – Dec 2009

Over 500% Growth in 2009From 11m to 75m Monthly UVs

Currently deploying new tech & architecture to scale the

network (MongoDB)

BuzzFeed NetworkUnique Visitors

Hard to Scale from 7M to 150M UVs

Dashboard Version 1

Technical Limitations

• Only Could Snapshot First 7 and Last 7 Days of a Post’s Life

• Couldn’t Keep Hourly Data Past First Day

Don’t Try to Design Around Tech Limitations

To Fancy, No Permalinks

Confusing

• No one used it :(

Too Confusing — No One Used It

Start Over

Rewrote Tracking Architecture from Scratch

Dashboard 2.0

BuzzFeed Started as a Buzz Aggregator

But Really It Was a Viral R&D Lab

Founded By Jonah Peretti

How & Why Do Things Spread On The Web?

Viral Media Science

• After collecting hundreds of thousands of pieces of content, we noticed that all viral content has something in common

• Working with Duncan Watts (BuzzFeed Science Advisor) we developed ViralRank –an elegant way to measure virality

• This discovery made us realize that BuzzFeed could become a much bigger business

ViralRank

R=ßz• ViralRank measures the “social reproduction

rate” of media

• It is the key metric to show what is getting shared and linked on the social, realtime web

• PageRank is great for identifying relevant content, ViralRank is great for discovering exciting content that is spreading quickly

The Viral Multiplier Effect

• The higher the value of R, the bigger the multiplier effect

• ViralRank shows which content consumers want to share, link, and spread through word-of-mouth

• Then our technology optimizes promotion of content based on these values

Time

R > 1 R = 1

R < 1

Site GrowthJan 2008 – Feb 2010

Over 1000% Growth From 600K to over 7M

BuzzFeed.com Unique Visitors

Over 7M in past 31 days

• rebuilt dashboard to be simple and useful

• dashboard should give you insight into which posts are doing well right now and where your traffic is coming from

Mission

High Level Goals

• Stop Hiding the Cool Stuff!Integrate new awesome stats into BuzzFeed and everything we do. Make public views of stats and dashboards.

• Self-Serve — Use BF Tech Everywhere! Build amazing product that lets people track, launch, and optimize viral content

• BuzzFeed is the App! Create one unified BuzzFeed app that anyone can use.

The Six S’s

Simplify: reduce complexity

Satisfy: creates excitement about BuzzFeed

Speedify: make app feel fast and realtime

Solidify: make app feel more solid and stable

Sharify: bookmarkable/linkable pages

Superiorify: iterate UI with testing & metrics

Top Posts

Quick Links:

Nat Geo Explorer 25

Settings Help

New Post +

10 Things You Didn't Know About The Imp...

10 Things You Didn't Know About Hermap...

3 Myths And 8 True Stories About LSD

10 Animals That DeserveTheir Own National...

10 Things You Didn't Know About Growing...

9,4326,290 viral

5,3194,312 viral

1,002212 viral

877344 viral

543187 viral

New Ad + New Widget + Track Your Site

48h | 7d | 30d Alerts

reddit.com linked to 10 Things You Didn't Know About Growing Potten minutes ago

stumbleupon.com linked to 10 Things You Didn't Know About Growing Pot2 hours ago

an LOL badge was awarded to 3 Myths And 8 True Stories About LSD5 hours ago

View All Posts...

digg.com 27,731

22,888

479

466

454

facebook.com

jimmyr.com

popurls.com

Top Traffic Sources 48h | 7d | 30d

10 Things You Didn't Know About Growing Pot is getting search traffic for the keyword “Growing Pot”6 hours ago

Cheech Merrin contributed an image to “Growing Pot”6 hours ago

Dashboard

Early Wireframes

Early HTML Mockups

Use Your Own Product

Track Most Active Users

Track Most Clicked Elements

• Hard to test when product is young

• Need big enough sample pool

• Hard to A/B test informational pages

• Hard to find time/resources with small team

Testing Is Hard

Boost

BuzzFeed Started as a Buzz Aggregator

But Really It Was a Viral R&D Lab

Founded By Jonah Peretti

How & Why Do Things Spread On The Web?

Viral Media Science

• After collecting hundreds of thousands of pieces of content, we noticed that all viral content has something in common

• Working with Duncan Watts (BuzzFeed Science Advisor) we developed ViralRank –an elegant way to measure virality

• This discovery made us realize that BuzzFeed could become a much bigger business

ViralRank

R=ßz• ViralRank measures the “social reproduction

rate” of media

• It is the key metric to show what is getting shared and linked on the social, realtime web

• PageRank is great for identifying relevant content, ViralRank is great for discovering exciting content that is spreading quickly

The Viral Multiplier Effect

• The higher the value of R, the bigger the multiplier effect

• ViralRank shows which content consumers want to share, link, and spread through word-of-mouth

• Then our technology optimizes promotion of content based on these values

Time

R > 1 R = 1

R < 1

Site GrowthJan 2008 – Feb 2010

Over 1000% Growth From 600K to over 7M

BuzzFeed.com Unique Visitors

Over 7M in past 31 days

First Time :-)

Second Time :-(

Simpler Isn’t Always Better

Viral Tracking

BuzzFeed Started as a Buzz Aggregator

But Really It Was a Viral R&D Lab

Founded By Jonah Peretti

How & Why Do Things Spread On The Web?

Viral Media Science

• After collecting hundreds of thousands of pieces of content, we noticed that all viral content has something in common

• Working with Duncan Watts (BuzzFeed Science Advisor) we developed ViralRank –an elegant way to measure virality

• This discovery made us realize that BuzzFeed could become a much bigger business

ViralRank

R=ßz• ViralRank measures the “social reproduction

rate” of media

• It is the key metric to show what is getting shared and linked on the social, realtime web

• PageRank is great for identifying relevant content, ViralRank is great for discovering exciting content that is spreading quickly

The Viral Multiplier Effect

• The higher the value of R, the bigger the multiplier effect

• ViralRank shows which content consumers want to share, link, and spread through word-of-mouth

• Then our technology optimizes promotion of content based on these values

Time

R > 1 R = 1

R < 1

Site GrowthJan 2008 – Feb 2010

Over 1000% Growth From 600K to over 7M

BuzzFeed.com Unique Visitors

Over 7M in past 31 days