Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
Home of all things viral, BuzzFeed continues to build out its original editorial content operation with its latest addition: FWD, BuzzFeed’s tech section.
FWD, which just launched this past Monday, is headed by former Gizmodo journalist Matt Buchanan. Buchanan said that while he enjoyed the last five years at Gizmodo, “it was time to do something different.” And that’s what he is hoping FWD will be, tech coverage that is different from the rest of the tech coverage out there.
The editorial point of view/slogan of FWD is “tech for humans,” as is displayed on the FWD homepage. “What that means is that the site’s audience is basically everyone who uses any kind of technology, whether it’s Twitter or a smartphone or Rdio,” as Buchanan explained. “And if tech is culture now, the same way film and music are — which we think it is — we should start talking about it that way.”
The competition is certainly stiff when it comes to tech coverage. There is, of course, Buchanan’s former employer, Gawker Media’s Gizmodo. Then there’s the big boy, Engadget, and The Verge, the tech pub started by editors who left Edgadget. There is also The Awl’s gadget site The Wirecutter. It’s a crowded space.
Buchanan says that we can look forward to some fun stuff coming up on FWD, like an advice column by Katie Heaney, whose work has appeared on The Hairpin and elsewhere, a weekly cartoon and “some other cool stuff,” which Buchanan says may include puppies.
BuzzFeed started on its editorial expansion back in December when it hired Politico’s Ben Smith as its editor-in-chief and created a politics section. The viral-hit-aggregator-to-real-publisher then soon after announced on Jan. 9 that it had raised $15.5 million in VC funding. It has since then continued to hire some big-name journalists for original-content creation like Michael Hastings and Doree Shafrir from Rolling Stone, New York magazine’s Amy Odell and now Buchanan.
Could puppies be the new cats on BuzzFeed? Stay tuned and see what’s happening on FWD. Follow FWD on Twitter at @fwd.
More in Media
‘The Big Bang has happened’: Reach gets proactive on AI-era referrals, starting with subscriptions
This week, the publisher of national U.K. titles Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star, is rolling out its first paid digital subscriptions – a big departure from the free, ad-funded model it’s had throughout its 120-year history.
Arena Group, BuzzFeed, USA Today Co, Vox Media join RSL’s AI content licensing efforts
Arena Group, BuzzFeed, USA Today Co and Vox Media are participating in the RSL Collective’s efforts to license content to AI companies.
Marketers move to bring transparency to creator and influencer fees
What was once a direct handoff now threads through a growing constellation of agencies, platforms, networks, ad tech vendors and assorted brokers, each taking something before the creator gets paid.