Buzzfeed Goes to Press: Special Edition Introduced on Newsprint
BuzzFeed brought its content to a different format yesterday – not a podcast or new licensed product line, and no virtual reality. The digitally native entertainment and news company tackled analog, publishing a print newspaper for one day only.
BuzzFeed handed out 20,000, 12-page newspapers for free. It included reviews of noise-canceling headphones, a printed version of a BuzzFeed quiz and printed screenshots of a gif of Glenn Close’s reactions at the Oscars.
A page is dedicated to "What no one tells you about NYC," another feature looks at millennial burnout. The cover story spotlights a strange phenomena around the Momo Challenge, a hoax that swept the internet, and the fan art inspired by the character.
BuzzFeed "newsies" wore logo-stamped vests and tote bags and passed out the newspapers from 5:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Union Square, Penn Station and Herald Square in New York City on Wednesday March 6.
The activation was a joint effort between Ben Kaufman, the newly appointed BuzzFeed Chief Marketing Officer and Ben Smith, BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief, as well as Jessi Probus, an entertainment-lifestyle writer.
"We printed out the internet," Smith said in a video on Twitter, as he helped pass out newspapers in Union Square.
TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/