World News – US – BuzzFeed Acquires HuffPost from Verizon Media

the deal is part of a larger arrangement between BuzzFeed and Verizon Media to share content across their platforms.

BuzzFeed plans to acquire HuffPost, the two companies announced Thursday, in a deal that will join a pair of digital media giants who have found themselves looking for readers and revenue as they have fallen prey to some of the same hurdles as old newspapers and magazines have plagued the media..

HuffPost will become a one-time possession of its competitor as part of a larger stock deal between Verizon Media, owner of HuffPost, and BuzzFeed.

“We are excited about our partnership with Verizon Media, and the mutual benefits that will come from sharing content across each other’s holdings, collaborating on innovative advertising products and the future of commerce, and leveraging the power and creativity of Verizon Media,” said Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed founder and CEO, in a statement.. the master. Peretti got his start in digital media at HuffPost under the direction of its founder, Ariana Huffington, when the site was called Huffington Post..

The companies said that as part of the agreement, Verizon Media will become a minority shareholder of BuzzFeed.

Verizon Media CEO Guru Goraban said in a statement: « Verizon Media’s strategy has evolved over the past two years to focus on our core strengths – advertising, commerce, content, and subscriptions. ». “We have built a robust ecosystem built on a trusted network that provides an end-to-end experience for consumers and advertisers. A partnership with BuzzFeed complements our roadmap while also accelerating our transformation and growth.

“The reason we are so attracted to it is the brand and the audience,” Mr.. Beretti said in an interview. «  We want HuffPost to be more than HuffPosty, and BuzzFeed to be more than BuzzFeedy – not a lot of crowd overlap. These are different audiences that you serve. On the editorial and consumer side, we want a lot of independence and independence for HuffPost and for it to define its own brand..

Talking again about HuffPost, Mr.. « We are going to appoint an editor-in-chief. (The site’s executive editor is Hillary Fry; former editor-in-chief, from 2016 through March of this year, Lydia Bulgreen, a former New York Times editor who left HuffPost to become the chief content officer for podcast company Gimlet Media. )

The merger of BuzzFeed and HuffPost is a homecoming for both implementers. Along with mrs. Huffington, CEO and Media Investor Kenneth Learer, and Mr.. Beretti was part of the team that created the original Huffington Post in 2005.

Next year, Mr.. Peretti, a web scientist with an enduring interest in online content that is proving more appealing to readers, started BuzzFeed as a sidebar pilot project, working from a small office in Manhattan’s Chinatown..

He was still chief technology officer at the Huffington Post at the time. Drenched with Google’s algorithm, sir. Peretti and the site editors helped engineer the Huffington Post in an online force marked by a new type of journalism – considerably original on the web, complete with menus, hot opinion pieces, slideshows and intriguing headlines – that attracted clicks from millions of readers in the years preceding Twitter and other social media sites take responsibility for online speech.

Mr.. Peretti left HuffPost in 2011, after it was sold to AOL for $ 315 million, and turned his small side project into a stand-alone company, with a cheerful branded site with satisfying features aimed largely at a millennial audience – including 21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity ”and a video by BuzzFeeders trying to make a watermelon explode – with increasingly current events and investigative articles covered under the banner of BuzzFeed News, a division led for eight years by founding editor, Ben Smith, before joining The Times as a media columnist.

In a 2018 interview with The Times, Mr.. Beretti, who has overseen a number of layoffs and took his company to the retail business, indicated that BuzzFeed could not continue in its current form, suggesting that the site would be better off as part of a larger entity..

He said at the time: “If BuzzFeed and five of the other biggest companies were merged into a larger digital media company, you could potentially get more money..

HuffPost, BuzzFeed, Verizon Media, Jonah Peretti, Media, Verizon Communications