
BuzzFeed starts selling products directly to consumers - hhs
https://www.wsj.com/articles/buzzfeed-starts-selling-products-directly-to-consumers-11596136660
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awillen
The lesson here is that the power lies with those who who have relationships
with consumers. That distribution channel is quite possibly the single most
valuable asset one can possess today. Kylie Jenner is ridiculously rich not
because she has amazing products (I mean I don't know much about cosmetics but
I can't believe they're 10x better than the next thing out there), but rather
because she has direct access to a large audience and understood what that
audience would be willing to buy.

This is really just a form of vertical integration/cutting out the middleman.
Why sell ad space to companies who will use it to sell goods to consumers when
you can instead just sell goods directly to those consumers?

The means of production used to be the most important thing - now it's the
means of distribution.

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Apocryphon
I wonder if this is an adjacent phenomenon to the financialization of
everything- the "moativation" of everything? To survive as a business, you
need to be everything to everyone, or at least explore as many tenuously-
connected paths to monetization.

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annexrichmond
How can you maintain journalistic integrity by selling the products directly?

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Geeek
Journalistic integrity? Buzzfeed?

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smrtinsert
Buzzfeed has won awards for its journalism.

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Geeek
I am well aware of that. But what's their ratio of actual journalism vs the
endless trash they put out?

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gruez
buzzfeed: trash

buzfeed _news_ : high quality journalism

just stick to the right side and you should be fine.

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BitwiseFool
BuzzFeed's brand of Clickbait primes me to think any product they're hocking
will be a dissapointment.

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xhkkffbf
I like how they claim that the writers won't have to write about the objects
that BuzzFeed is selling. If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you--
and you can buy it right here by clicking on this link.

