AllThingsD » Politico

BuzzFeed Bulks Up Again, With a Tech Section Run by Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan

Peter Kafka — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:18:45 +0000

Do we need more Web sites writing about tech? Yes, yes we do.

Which is good, because here’s another one: BuzzFeed, the online publishing start-up that’s the toast of people who like to write about online publishing start-ups, is adding a tech section run by Gizmodo star Matt Buchanan.

This follows a now-familiar pattern we’ve seen from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti. Last month, Peretti brought on Politico star Ben Smith to start up the site’s political coverage and to run its overall editorial operations. A couple of weeks ago, he hired Doree Shafrir from Rolling Stone’s Web site to oversee “culture” coverage for the site.

Now Buchanan*, a five-year veteran of Gawker Media’s gadget-obsessed site, will start a new “vertical,” along with John Herrman from Popular Mechanics.

All of this hiring comes as Peretti is flush with cash courtesy of a $15 million funding round, and has reconnected with many of the people he used to work with at Huffington Post, which he co-founded.

Fellow HuffPo cofounder Ken Lerer is also a BuzzFeed co-founder, and former HuffPo ad boss Greg Coleman has come on as an advisor. Everyone who types about the media business likes writing about Peretti, but if you haven’t read any of this yet, I’d suggest starting with this New York Observer profile.

Buchanan and his crew will start publishing in mid-February, says Smith, who says the coverage will be something like what Buchanan did at Gizmodo, and also nothing like it. Think more “tech culture,” and less “stuff about gadgets.”

Well, maybe you should hold off on calling it “tech culture,” too, Smith says. “I guess I hesitate to call it tech culture, because I don’t think there’s a clear line between tech and culture anymore.”

Okay. So what’s next up in the BuzzFeed expansion plan? There’s got to be a bunch of cash left, right? “There will be more. Stay tuned.”

And now, a lightly edited version of a superfast exit interview I conducted via IM with Buchanan, who I gather is headed out for a couple of drinks as I type this.

Peter Kafka: Why’d you leave Gawker Media? I know lots of people have come to you in the past. Why go now?

Matt Buchanan: It’s an opportunity to build something completely new on a really exciting platform, which, even though the hallmark of Gizmodo is the immense freedom we all have, you know, the one thing I can never get here is the chance to do it all from scratch. And to do something that’s different from what a lot other tech sites are doing, I hope. I do love Gawker, and everybody here. I was from the generation that never got screwed over, so I only have good things to say about it.

Kafka: So should we be looking elsewhere for unboxing coverage, liveblogs of Android OS unveilings, and other blow-by-blow standards of tech coverage? Or will you leave all that behind?

Buchanan: Leaving almost all of that behind. I think technology deserves writing and criticism at the same level as any other aspect of culture, like film or music, because the reality of our world now is that it is just as important as those things. It is mainstream culture now. So we want to do tech for humans, as a main thing — but I also want hardcore tech readers to like what they see, too.

Like, we’ll talk about phones and gadgets to the extent that we find it interesting, and that other people might find it interesting, but no, this isn’t another gadget site. I would like to note that it is the first technology site powered entirely by ginger tears, which is what I’m most excited about.

Kafka: Curious about your take on your new employer. Seems to me that, while they’re uncomfortable saying this out loud, Jonah and crew are really setting out to build a new version of HuffPo: Build site by aggregating/curating, etc., other people’s content, then use that momentum/money to hire their own folks to build on that. The big obvious difference is that there isn’t a personality driving it from the get-go. And it’s tuned more to social than to search. Thoughts?

Buchanan: Yes! I think it’s too early to tell for some of that — even for me — but what I’m into is the fact that it’ll give John and I the freedom and flexibility to do the kind of tech writing and journalism that we want to do.

*Disclosure: I’ve met Matt a couple times, have chatted with him online a few more times, and I like him. He’s also an excellent resource if you’re planning a trip to Momofuku Ssäm (which you should definitely do, unless you’re a vegetarian) and need help with your ordering strategy.

Facebook Gives Politico Deep Access to Users' Political Sentiments

Liz Gannes — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:02:50 +0000

Counting Twitter mentions would have you believe that Ron Paul is the most popular Republican candidate in the ongoing U.S. primaries. Umm, right.

But some social media analysis of politics is going beyond that. A partnership between Facebook and Politico announced today is one of the more far-reaching efforts. It will consist of sentiment analysis reports and voting-age user surveys, accompanied by stories by Politico reporters.

Most notably, the Facebook-Politico data set will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments. While that may alarm some people, Facebook and Politico say the entire process is automated and no Facebook employees read the posts.

Rather, every post and comment — both public and private — by a U.S. user that mentions a presidential candidate’s name will be fed through a sentiment analysis tool that spits out anonymized measures of the general U.S. Facebook population.

This is similar to the way Google offers reports on search trends based on its users’ aggregate search activities.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Buzzfeed Raises $15 Million to Make More Buzzy Content

Peter Kafka — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:37:35 +0000

News aggregator/newsmaker Buzzfeed has raised a $15.5 million C round led by New Enterprise Associates. The New York-based site, run by Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti, also features HuffPo co-founder Ken Lerer as investor and chairman, and former HuffPo sales boss Greg Coleman has joined as a board advisor. The site recently signaled its intent to generate more of its own content, designed to be flung around users’ social networks, by hiring Politico blogger Ben Smith to beef up its editorial ranks.

Facebook, MoveOn Vets Working on Mystery Media Start-Up for Lefties

Liz Gannes — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:45:35 +0000

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is backing a stealthy news venture from former MoveOn Executive Director Eli Pariser that they’re calling a “viral media start-up” for progressives.

Eli Pariser

Pariser is recently known for his concept of the “filter bubble,” in which an increasingly personalized Internet fails to expose people to new and opposing information sources and viewpoints. (Here’s a video interview I did with him in May about his book on the filter bubble.) Prior to that, Pariser was known for his online organizing and viral fundraising campaigns at MoveOn.

Pariser and Hughes are keeping quiet about what they’re doing, but this week put out public job postings. Hughes posted on Facebook yesterday, “If you love Facebook, hate Fox News, and are amazingly talented, check out these jobs at a great new startup I’m backing.”

Chris Hughes

“Cloud Tiger Media,” which doesn’t appear to have its own Web site, is looking to hire technical, design and editorial roles. The company posits, “Bottom line, we believe that the media company of the future will be as much a tech company as an editorial process.”

Pariser declined to comment beyond what was included in the job posts.

After leaving Facebook, Hughes worked on the Obama campaign and founded the social network for social good Jumo, which was taken offline after being picked up by GOOD.

In related news, this week Politico reporter Ben Smith joined the viral content aggregator BuzzFeed.

Here’s that Pariser video:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Chris Hughes image via Flickr user USV.)

Yahoo's Envoy Joins Diplomatic Discussion

Voices — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:53:06 +0000

Yahoo today launched the latest addition to its growing stable of original blogs–The Envoy, which will cover foreign affairs with Laura Rozen, most recently chief foreign policy reporter for Politico, at the helm. Yahoo now has 23 original blogs across its news, sports and entertainment coverage, and said that in February, monthly traffic to those sites topped 550 million page views for the first time.

Demand Media's Richard Rosenblatt and ProPublica's Paul Steiger Live at D8

Peter Kafka — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:10:32 +0000

What’s the future of the media business? Demand Media, the Google-savvy “content farm” that generates thousands of computer-assigned, low-cost Web items a day? Or ProPublica, a nonprofit that produces deep-dive investigative pieces and publishes them on its own site and in the pages of high-profile partners?

Good guess: Some of both. But let’s allow both parties to make their own case.

Brief background: Demand Media is Richard Rosenblatt’s follow-up to MySpace, which he sold to News Corp. (NWS); Paul Steiger founded ProPublica after a long career at The Wall Street Journal.

Below is the full video of the interview, followed by the liveblog:

[ See post to watch video ]

Liveblog

9:41 am: Kara asks Paul Steiger to explain what he’s up to.

Steiger: Stories are aimed at abuse of power and empowering people to make change. I started there because when I was leaving the Journal in 2007, the traditional news business was collapsing. We had $10 million in funding and that wasn’t something I could turn down in that environment. I didn’t have time to be worried–I had to leave the Journal because of mandatory retirement age, and my wife said I couldn’t wear sweatpants during the weekday.

9:44 am: Kara to Rosenblatt–Please explain the controversy regarding Demand.

[WARNING: Rosenblatt speaks very quickly. It's unlikely that I'll be able to get more than impressionistic stabs at what he's saying.]

“We only write content that people want….We’re not journalists, all right? The only people that call us journalists are journalists.” That said, what we do is “more like service journalism….There’s no piece of content made that we think is good” because we only make content that people tell us they think is good.

9:46 am: Rosenblatt–We do no marketing. All traffic comes from organic search.

I don’t know why people call this “dreck.” When you do something 6,000 times a day, it always looks like it’s of low-quality. We’re okay with that; we’re continually trying to prove to people that we’re doing good stuff.

We have a deal with USA Today and others that we’ll be announcing.

9:47 am: Kara to Steiger–What do you think of all this?

Steiger: I see this as a reordering of the environment that we’re all going to have to live in. You [Demand] make stuff people want; you control costs, and it’s working. Another model is the Politico model, with a combination of tightly controlled print plus a big Web site. We do the most expensive, the most important journalism for democracy.

Kara: Example?

Steiger: A story we did with the Los Angeles Times about nurses getting bogus licenses. A story about police in New Orleans killing people. There are five or six things like that in the past year where we can point to changes that have taken place because of our stories. These things can cost tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands to produce.

In the old days, that could be a loss leader for for-profit newspapers. Can’t do that anymore, so we need philanthropy. “Silicon Valley, come on in!”

9:50 am: Kara to Rosenblatt–Will you do “Top 10 nurses that beat people up”?

Rosenblatt: No

Kara: Wait a minute! People may want it!

Rosenblatt: I think journalism is important, and the problem is trying to pay for it. We can help publications like USA Today, where we generate content and revenue for them, and they can take that money to fund other reporting. We’re not going to save journalism, but we can help it.

Kara to Rosenblatt: You employ a lot of journalists.

Rosenblatt: Not journalists.

Kara: Former journalists?

Rosenblatt: They may have been former journalists, and they may do journalism somewhere else. We call them freelancers, content creators.

9:53 am: Kara asks Rosenblatt to explain editing/oversight.

Rosenblatt: Eleven people touch this stuff before it gets published, etc. Anyway, let’s say we do 7,000 pieces of content a day. That’s 77,000 individual touches per day, with 10,000 freelancers around the Web. That’s amazing. That’s what the Web is made for.

9:54 am: Kara–How do they get paid?

Rosenblatt: They can get paid by piece or by revenue-share. But most of them prefer to get paid by content, because it’s guaranteed.

9:55 am: Kara–at The Wall Street Journal, we had people who worked for months on a single story. Is that done?

Steiger: The Journal, the New York Times and Washington Post are still vertically integrated and have powerful enough brands and talent that I think they can make it into the next generation.

Kara: Two of those are in dicey shape.

Steiger: Remember that there are two things going on right now. There is a secular shift, with the business model being destroyed. But there’s also a recession. So as that eases, we’ll have a better sense of who can survive.

9:58 am: Steiger–I’d love to go back to 10 years ago, or longer, to the golden age of journalism. But not even Silicon Valley can produce a time machine.

Kara: So do you think even the big newspapers that survive will switch to audience-driven content creation? That’s not what journalism is about.

Steiger: No matter what you’re doing, you’re still making stuff with an idea of what the people who are reading you want. It’s a broader way of thinking about it than Demand, but there’s a common thread.

9:59 am: Kara to Rosenblatt–Where is your actual business? Is it domains?

Rosenblatt: We have two main businesses: Registrar/domains. It’s steady, recurring revenue, and it generates a lot of data. Almost 10 percent of the Web hits our servers via these domains. It’s an exciting source of data.

Then we have the media business. That’s 50 percent bigger, in revenue, than other business and growing fast.

Of that business, less than 10 percent is domain advertising business. Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) stick ads on tenniselbow.com, etc. We think that’s a great business also.

Kara: Is your media business profitable?

Rosenblatt: Can’t talk about that.

Kara: Does that mean it’s not profitable?

Rosenblatt: Can’t talk about that.

Kara: But you’re going public, right?

Rosenblatt: Can’t talk about that.

10:03 am: Kara–you’re dependent on Google, right?

Rosenblatt: In the way that everyone is dependent on Google. Or that the iPhone is dependent on AT&T (T). But everyone searches on the Web. So some of our sites, like eHow, are getting traffic from Google. But others aren’t.

If Google changes their algorithm, we think about that. But we spend a lot of care on what we do, and we think there’s a move to quality long-tail content that Google values.

10:05 am: Kara to Rosenblatt–AOL is doing what you’re doing. Yahoo just bought Associated Content. It has more distribution than you do. What does that mean for you?

Rosenblatt: We love that AOL (AOL) and Yahoo are validating what we’re doing. “In a market this big, that’s in the first inning, there’s plenty of room for all of us.”

10:05 am: Kara to Steiger–How do you feel about the kind of journalism you do becoming nonprofit work? Does that depress you?

Steiger: “I’m the opposite of disheartened. I’m very excited.” Yes, the business is shrinking and people are losing jobs, and I don’t want to make light of that. But we’re attracting great people; we’ve won a Pulitzer Prize. The work will get done. The work is crucial to our society, and it needs philanthropic support. But so do orchestras and clinics and universities.

10:07 am: Kara–Is there a way to actually make money doing this?

Steiger: “Conceivably, but I can’t think of what it is.” If you’re focused entirely on this, “at this stage, you need philanthropic help.”

Kara to Rosenblatt: Can you think of how to do this?

Rosenblatt: You can hold a conference and charge people $5,000 a head. [Applause in conference room and in D8 cave.]

Q&A

For Rosenblatt: Why won’t you call your people “journalists”? Steve Jobs was full of venom for “bloggers,” too. Why not call people who write for money “journalists”?

Rosenblatt: If our writers want to call themselves journalists, great. But they’re not doing reporting from Afghanistan. We’re content creators, making things that people want.

Steiger: I just think that the labels get in the way.

Q: Who are those 11 people that touch Demand Media’s content? What do they do?

Rosenblatt: Some people are involved in “titling.” For SEO or social media purposes. Three people are involved in checking each title. Then people involved in each property select stories, depending on the voice. Then copy editors, copy chiefs, writers. We’re actually going to be adding more. We can make it so efficient, that we can add more roles, and everyone can keep making the same amount of money.

Q: What about rolling out content on the domains you run?

A: Not yet. Maybe in coming years. It’s not a focus right now. We do think the assets that you own and we own, we think those assets “have great optionality later” to put content on.

Q for Steiger: Do you share Steve Jobs’s distaste for bloggers?

Steiger: I sleep with a blogger! My wife blogs from 11 pm to 2 am. I’m an enthusiastic supporter of blogging. They bring a lot of audience to ProPublica’s Web site. I think what Steve was getting at is that there’s a danger of too many people commenting and not enough people finding out what’s going on. [I don't think that's entirely what Jobs was complaining about, btw.]

This content-creation session is now over.

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as possible. It is not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

President Clinton Talks About His Internet Legacy (BTW, He's an iPhone Dude, While the GOP's #41 Is a BlackBerry Teen)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:38:51 +0000

Here is a video I did of former President Bill Clinton talking at an event related to the 25th anniversary of the first .com domain registration.

Clinton gave a keynote speech first–which was, inexplicably, about health-care legislation and global warming.

But after Clinton was done, he sat down with VeriSign (VRSN) CEO Mark McLaughlin to talk about a range of Web-related topics, in a very amusing interview exchange.

They included what devices he uses, broadband access and the dire state of traditional media.

Clinton talked about what sites–largely political–he likes. He mentioned Politico, Daily Beast and the Huffington Post for their analysis and outlook, as well as far-right ones, to keep track of his opposition.

Interestingly, he did not mention the Washington Post (WPO) or the New York Times (NYT) online, although he said their deep reporting was valuable.

Still, Clinton noted, “It’s almost impossible, given the economics of the modern world for newspapers to continue.”

And the 42nd President of the United States is an Apple (AAPL) fanboy, naming his iPhone as his fave gadget (although he said he also has a BlackBerry).

Clinton joked that his predecessor, No. 41, former President George H.W. Bush, is a maniac user of the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, likening him to a teenager.

Also, no Kindle from Amazon (AMZN), since Clinton said he still likes books.

Here’s the video (sorry about his shiny watch, but you can hear him!):

[ See post to watch video ]

Washington Post: Our Reporters Aren't For Sale (Yet)

Peter Kafka — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:58:06 +0000

Want access to the Washington, D.C., elite? The city’s hometown paper is happy to arrange that for you provided you’re willing to pay between $25,000 and $250,000. The caveat: That fee won’t include access to the Washington Post’s (WPO) editorial staff.

That distinction popped up this morning after Politico detailed an “astonishing offer” by the paper’s business staff to lobbyists–a chance to underwrite “salons” with D.C. bigshots, hosted at the home of CEO Katharine Weymouth.

A promotional flier Politico got its hands on also promised that the Post’s editorial staff would be part of the events, including one scheduled for July 21. But that part isn’t true, a Post spokeswoman told me via email this morning:

The flier circulated this morning came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication. It went out before it was properly vetted, and this draft does not represent what the company’s vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers.

As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this.

We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that The Post should be leading these conversations in Washington, big or small, while maintaining journalistic integrity. The newsroom will participate where appropriate.

OK, so that’s cleared up. But let me play devil’s advocate: What exactly would be so wrong about getting the paper’s reporters or editors to to participate in one of these?

This certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the Post has been at the nexus of power, money and influence. In fact, Weymouth’s grandmother, Katharine Graham, was famous for hosting gatherings much like these at her house. And publications of all stripes, including this one, as well as Dow Jones, which owns this site, frequently charge fees to attend networking events where their editorial staffs participate.

And you’re likely to see more of this stuff, not less, as publishers search for revenue streams besides advertising to stay afloat. Any tempest you see about this today is going to look quaint in a couple of years.

UPDATE: The ensuing uproar has forced the Post to cancel the events altogether. Post execs are now busy pointing fingers at each other, although it seems clear a lot of the blame is going to be laid at the feet of the paper’s conference group and/or marketing team.

But note Howard Kurtz’s report on his employers’ reactions to the reaction: Weymouth (or her proxies) say she was OK with the idea, but not the marketing; Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli says he was OK with the concept, but not this version:

Weymouth knew of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation. But, one of the executives said, she believed that there would be multiple sponsors, to minimize any appearance of charging for access, and that the newsroom would be in charge of the scope and content of any dinners in which Post reporters and editors participated.

Brauchli said he had been involved in discussions, stretching back to last year, about newsroom participation in conferences of the sort commonly staged by major news organizations.

But he said he made clear to the company’s marketing officials that Post journalists would participate only if they could substantially control the nature of any such conference. Brauchli said he was blindsided by the wording of these fliers and that they are an embarrassment to the newspaper.

In the old days, the fact that this story broke just before the long holiday weekend would help the Post. But this story will now have legs, egged on by stuff like this:

Startup Tries to Rally Publishers with Ad-Sharing Proposal

Jessica E. Vascellaro — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:39:16 +0000

A Silicon Valley startup and handful of publishers have a new plan to bring peace to the war between Web sites and media companies accusing them of stealing their content.

The group, which includes Reuters and smaller online publishers like Politico, wants companies that broker advertising to Web sites to give them a share of the revenue from ads they sell alongside full copies of their content. Companies like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), along with many more specialized players, operate advertising networks that carry out this brokering role.

Reponsibility for policing the program would fall to Attributor Corp., whose technology identifies copies of articles and videos on the Web. Up to now its clients, which include the Associated Press and the Financial Times, have often used the information to request their content be taken down.

Read the rest of this post on WSJ.com, its original Web site

Obama's Post-Election Media Bump: Over

Peter Kafka — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:30:07 +0000

Remember last week? When, in the aftermath of a historic presidential election, things were so giddy that it seemed even newspapers might be valuable again–at least as collector’s items? Well, that’s over.

EBay (EBAY) sellers are still trying to sucker buyers into paying extra for a copy of the Nov. 5 copy of the New York Times, but prices have come way down. This likely has to do with the fact that the Times (NYT) printed an extra 50,000 copies after the first run sold out.

Meanwhile, a MediaMemo correspondent reports from Washington D.C. that commemorative copies of the Washington Post’s special edition–which people stood in line to buy last week–are mounting up, unsold, throughout the city:

There are a lot of week-old commemorative edition newspapers available for the buying. I was at one Safeway and two 7-11s in Washington, all three flush with copies of the Post. And in NW DC there are side vendors–different guys from the news kiosks–selling stacks of them.”

But don’t gloat, Web publishers. Your Obama bump is diminishing, too. Take a look at this Hitwise data, via 24/7 Wall Street, that show what happens to political sites like Huffington Post, Slate.com and Politco in the aftermath of an election–their audience starts melting away.

All of the sites will tell you they’ve planned for that, of course. But they were probably also planning on an expanding market for Internet ad dollars. And that’s no longer a given.