Funny Business: How Matt Bellassai went from BuzzFeed intern to social media star

Four years ago, Matt Bellassai was an editorial intern at BuzzFeed. Today, he has a People’s Choice Award, just completed a 30-city stand-up comedy tour and is working on his first book -- not exactly the standard trajectory for someone who originally wanted to be a magazine writer. But that’s simply the nature of the times, where anyone with a fresh or interesting voice can quickly become a star by uploading videos on the web.

Luxury fashion’s slowly coming around to plus sizes

Luxury designers have been slow to enter the plus size market, despite it growing year on year and there being a strong demand for it. One approach to tackling the issue is collaborations between plus size retailer Lane Bryant and luxury designers like Prabal Gurung, who also believes the answer for change lies with small retail boutiques. “Big changes happen in small places,” Gurung said.

Bottoms Up: One exec’s quest to turn down the bro in beer marketing

Britt Dougherty is "humanizing beer" at MillerCoors -- a mission that began when during an ad review she realized all the women in ads for the brand were wearing bikinis. In an effort to stimulate slowing big beer growth and get women -- a hugely important part of the market -- Dougherty is out talking to distributors about fewer bikinis and more women that are part of the conversation. “We know we have millions of barrels of opportunity if we do this right,” she says.

Day in the Life: How Brit Morin built a DIY business

For Brit Morin, building a business was a lot like assembling one of her brand’s DIY boxes. In this latest story from Pulse, see a sneak peek of Morin's diary, which includes a lot of meetings, green juice and Ezekiel toast.

Inside Verizon’s struggle to build a digital entertainment business

Nearly a year since its launched, Verizon’s mobile video app Go90 has struggled to make a dent among the viewing public. Numerous content partners report viewership in the “hundreds” or “thousands” per video. But Verizon, a phone company that now also wants to be a media company, isn’t giving up. Recent hires including NBCUniversal vet Chip Canter and YouTube vet Ivana Kirkbride signal Verizon’s commitment to keeping and growing Go90 -- for now.

Tequila sunrise: Inside Patron’s renaissance

Tequila has successfully shunned its lick-shoot-suck frat-boy image. Evolving consumer palettes and a shift toward more premium, 100 percent agave varieties have put tequila on a sustained upswing, with total tequila volumes increasing by 4.5 percent to nearly 14.7 million cases in 2015, according to the Shanken News Daily’s Impact Databank. But significant marketing pushes have also helped tequila reinvent itself. Leading that charge is Patrón, responding to increased competition in the category from brands by investing in new product lines and emphasizing “substance over style” in its marketing.

Editor’s note: Video killed the internet star

Jonah Peretti's move to Los Angeles is a symbol of how digital media is moving toward video. With that in mind, we themed this issue of Pulse, Digiday's quarterly magazine, around this medium.

Joey Marburger is The Washington Post’s (punk) rock star

Product heads are becoming key people at news organizations as they adapt to a distributed-media world. With his punk rock-inspired style, Washington Post product head Joey Marburger may not look the part of the conventional newspaper exec, but he's become part of Post owner Jeff Bezos' inner circle, with his ability to bridge the gap between news and tech. For Marburger, whether he's working on a project for the newsroom or sales side, the end goal is the same: "I want to help fix the journalism model," he says.