BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed is an Internet media company based in New York City. The firm describes itself as a “social news and entertainment company” with a focus on digital media and digital technology in order to provide “the most shareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video.”[5] BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 as a viral lab, focusing on tracking viral content, by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III.[6] Kenneth Lerer, co-founder and Chairman of The Huffington Post, started as a co-founder and investor in BuzzFeed and is now the Executive Chairman as well.[6]

Prior to establishing BuzzFeed, Peretti experimented with contagious media as director of research and development and the OpenLab at Eyebeam, Johnson’s New York City-based art and technology non-profit.[7][8] The company has grown into a global[9] media and technology company providing coverage on a variety of topics including politics, DIY, animals and business. In late 2011, Ben Smith of Politico was hired as Editor-in-Chief, in a move to expand the site into serious journalism, long-form and reportage.

Jonah Peretti

Jonah H. Peretti (born January 1, 1974)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur, a founder of BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post, and developer of reblogging under the project “Reblog”.

Life and education

Peretti grew up in Oakland, California.[6] His father is Italian-American and his mother is Jewish. His stepmother was African-American.[7][8] He attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he graduated with a degree in environmental studies in 1996.[4] He taught computer science classes at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, Louisiana in the mid-1990s.[9] He completed a postgrad at the MIT Media Lab.[10] While there, he became famous when an email exchange[1] with Nike over a request to print “sweatshop” on custom order shoes went viral.[11] He is the brother of comedian and writer Chelsea Peretti[12] and married to blogger Andrea Harner.