Big takeout in New York mag this week on BuzzFeed and its forays into the frontiers of native advertising/sponsored content/commerce journalism.

Does BuzzFeed Know the Secret?

Jonah Peretti’s viral-content machine purports to have solved the problems of both journalism and advertising at once, all with the help of a simple algorithm.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the website BuzzFeed—though this is increasingly unlikely, as it’s currently enjoying a viral moment. The site is a hyper active amalgam: simultaneously a journalism website, a purveyor of funny lists, and a perpetual pop-culture plebiscite where you can vote on articles with bright-yellow buttons reading lol, wtf, and omg. You can find news there, really serious news by first-rate journalists, about subjects like lobbying scandals and killer drones. You can also find an enormous amount of stuff like “The 40 Greatest Dog GIFs of All Time.” If you’re into that, in fact, there’s an entire section devoted to animals.

Not to mention big chunks devoted to native advertising, which is sponsored content (read: marketing material) that’s virtually indistinguishable from editorial content . . .

Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.