The 80/20 View: The battle of BuzzFeed against media’s major players
In his regular column for Mumbrella, former Thinkerbell general manager Ben Shepherd looks at the emerging debate of content versus commerce as media companies tackle the heavyweights.
It came and went in a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moment last week, but the announcement that BuzzFeed would be going public via a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company 890 5th Avenue Partners was an intriguing move.
What it provided, if you dug a little deeper, was a detailed look at what a future playbook may look like for media companies not attached to the handful of major players that dominate the space (think Disney, Netflix, Comcast, Warner, Google, Facebook).
BuzzFeed has always been an interesting company, as it was often portrayed as the model of building a future focused media company. It was valued at $1.5 billion over six years ago, and over its history it raised USD$496 million in funding.
