Criticles
BuzzFeed laid off its Director of Quizzes because lots of people are willing to make quizzes for free
There was one departure today that gave us a little bit of insight into part of BuzzFeed’s publishing model. Matthew Perpetua, a music writer and editor who became BuzzFeed’s director of quizzes, wrote about his position ending on his site Fluxblog (emphasis mine):
You might be wondering — wait, why would they lay you off? You were doing the quizzes, and that brings in a lot of money! Well, that is true. But another thing that is true is that a LOT of the site’s overall traffic comes from quizzes and a VERY large portion of that traffic comes from a constant flow of amateur quizzes made by community users. In the recent past, the second highest traffic driver worldwide has been a community user in Michigan who is a teenager in college who, for some reason, makes dozens of quizzes every week. It’s kinda amazing how much revenue-generating traffic the site gets from unpaid community volunteers. So, in a ruthless capitalist way, it makes sense for the company to pivot to having community users create almost all of the quizzes going forward. I understand math. I get it.
This is the final question of the quiz, raising an issue that seems even more timely than usual:
As it says just below the headline: “This post has not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed’s editorial staff. BuzzFeed Community is a place where anyone create a post. Learn more or post your buzz!”
This story has been republished with permission from Nieman Lab. Read the original story on their website.
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