Fastcompany recently ran a series of very interesting pieces about how Buzzfeed has gone about their plan for world domination. While Buzzfeed’s publisher Dao Nguyen says that you can’t make decisions on data alone, the company clearly has its main focus on mining proprietary engagement data and improving its processes in a never ending loop.
I see Vice on the opposite end of the spectrum. While they are no strangers to utilizing data to inform their work, Vice content at least feels to me like it has a distinct voice – unlike Buzzfeed content, where the headlines just scream of clickbait.
In this Gigaom article Mathew Ingram argues that this is exactly what is happening to the media industry: The value is moving to the edges, either to those with the tech and data advantage or those with brand awareness and an original voice.
Which end are you going for?
