Buzzfeed is a website that attempts to detect and list “viral content”, or videos that are bound to spread like wildfire around the internet. The site aims to serve as a central location for users to find and share the hottest new trends that are emerging on the web. BuzzFeed provides an RSS feed, email updates and a widget that users can embed on their own sites.

Visit www.buzzfeed.com

BuzzFeed was founded in October 2006 in part by Jonah Peretti, who also co-founded The Huffington Post. The site is intended to provide an aggregation of all of the latest trends and memes developing on the internet in order to capture the latest fads that are emerging on the internet.

Due to the fact that BuzzFeed attempts to capture the latest up-and-coming memes and viral videos, users can utilize BuzzFeed in order to keep on top of these trends either for personal amusement or in order to track that information for professional purposes, such as marketing. Users of the site can see the latest and most viewed videos, link to users who most accurately predict when a video is going to go viral, and view links that were given badges. BuzzFeed also permits users to submit their own content, allowing them to possibly create their own viral videos to be listed on the site.

The BuzzFeed website is presented in such a way that a user is given quite a bit of information to wade through, but most of the links that appear to clutter the screen actually lead to worthwhile content. The organized chaos that the homepage presents seems to work; however, a cleaner interface would likely serve the site better. Another gripe that one might have with BuzzFeed, despite being an entertaining site to visit, it partakes a little too heavily in internet shorthand, which may be a turnoff to some. For instance, users tag links as “OMG”, “WTF”, and “LOL”, which we all know and use, but just seems childish when used in this capacity. Surely there are better, more professional sounding tags, but given the site’s content and entertainment value, this can be forgiven.

New users to BuzzFeed can register by clicking the blue “Sign up” link on the top right of the main menu bar. Users are then asked to name their personal feed, and then enter their email address and password. After this is complete, users then click the blue “Let’s Go” button, at which point a confirmation email is sent. After following the confirmation link, users are then immediately logged into the site and presented with their profile to fill out more completely, including the ability to add photos, a bio, and various links. Alternately, users can sign into BuzzFeed using their Facebook accounts, eliminating the need for tracking multiple logins and providing integration between BuzzFeed and Facebook.

BuzzFeed is an entirely free service, allowing users to share and browse to their heart’s content. There is a bit of advertising on the site to make up for this, but it’s presented in a way that is really not intrusive, and it’s almost sneaked in when present, so that it’s not offensive or overbearing in any way.

BuzzFeed is all about connecting users to the hottest content on the internet. As such, anyone who is interested in just some mindless browsing for new hilarious videos to pass around the office to business people looking to the latest trends to see what they can possibly cash in on, BuzzFeed has something to suit them all. Sites like BuzzFeed surely are not loved by employers, as employees can easily spend hours shirking their duties whilst browsing the site!

• Create a personal feed containing their own submissions, as well as items they feel are worthy of reposting
• Vote on whether something will become “viral” as well as a leaderboard to track who is the most accurate
• Easily share videos to various social networks
• Link their BuzzFeed account to Facebook
• Vote in a weekly contest to determine which is the most popular time-wasting flash game of the week

Visit www.buzzfeed.com