What the mainstream media could learn from BuzzFeed

gigaoma reporting:
f anyone inside most traditional media companies thinks about BuzzFeed at all, they probably see it as the site that posts “viral” photo galleries of kittens and other web ephemera — or possibly as the site that hired reporter Ben Smith away from Politico to head up its more serious side. But while it may have gone unnoticed by most, the BuzzFeed network has grown into a significant digital-media entity, and Smith’s hiring is just the latest example of the site’s broadening ambitions. Is there anything that mainstream media companies can learn from what it has done, apart from the fact that web users like pictures of cats? As it turns out, an internal memo to staff from co-founder Jonah Peretti has more than a few worthwhile lessons....
 A lot of media companies, both mainstream and otherwise, seem to be looking for whatever quick fix they can come up with to boost their pageviews or web traffic so that they can drive revenues from online advertising — but this kind of strategy inevitably suffers if it isn’t well thought out. It may look like BuzzFeed is just throwing together whatever will get clicks, but Peretti sees what the company is doing as part of a long-term plan to create a truly web-native media enterprise...
..In one section of the letter, Peretti talks about the principle of “respecting the reader,” which for BuzzFeed means not using pageview-pumping tactics like slideshows, and not cluttering up pages with SEO-friendly keywords or using headlines that misrepresent what is actually in the post. But what he’s really saying is that BuzzFeed isn’t just socially oriented because it makes for good traffic and that helps sell advertising (although that’s obviously the business model) — the site is social in the sense that everything it does is aimed at sharing information readers will enjoy, in a way they will enjoy it...
...We focus on publishing content our readers love so much they think it is worth sharing. It sounds simple but it’s hard to do and it is the metric that aligns our company with our readers.
http://gigaom.com/2012/07/25/what-the-mainstream-media-could-learn-from-buzzfeed/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=d8ec521a49-c%3Amed+d%3A07-26&utm_medium=email