IAB seeks to create a definition for news following Buzzfeed debate
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is looking to establish a definition around what content should be classified as news after viral content site Buzzfeed complained it had been put in the wrong category, Mumbrella understands.
The move by the digital advertising body, which will be an initiative of the IAB Measurement Council, comes after Mumbrella reported last month Buzzfeed’s Australian operation had enough traffic to make it into the top ten for news sites, but had been classified under “search engines, portals, and communities”, despite its official launch by the Walkley Foundation in January where it claimed to be a news site.
In the month since, Nielsen has had extensive consultations with its parent US company and chosen to reclassify Buzzfeed into a news subcategory in Australia, but will still not be allowed to enter the main news site rankings.
“As of May data to be released in June, Buzzfeed will fall into the News & Information > Multi-category News & Information sub-category,” said a spokeswoman for Nielsen in a statement.
An interesting debate. One the one hand “23 simpsons quotes that will restore your faith in humanity” definitely isn’t news but a quick look at most of the commercial news portals shows that traditional news articles are increasingly sitting alongside these useless listicles.
“a quick look at most of the commercial news portals shows that traditional news articles are increasingly sitting alongside these useless listicles.”
Well if they want to give up being news sites then they should be excluded too. Surely if you want the higher yield from being a news site you have to deliver news.
“Newstainment”