How do sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy and Viral Nova make money?

Asked by Hawaii_Jake (37748

) April 2nd, 2014

For better or worse, I notice posts on Facebook from places like Buzzfeed, etc., and I sometimes click the link to laugh at the funny pictures or read the silly lists.

I’ve never been asked for any information from these sites. They don’t request access to my Facebook friends list. They don’t ask me for anything.

I couldn’t tell you anything about a single advertisement on any of the pages. I don’t notice them at all.

Does anyone here know how these pages make money? Page clicks don’t generate funds, do they? How do these small Internet operations stay in business?

For what it’s worth, I’ve stopped taking the quizzes like “Which vegetable are you?”

Observing members: 0

Composing members: 0

4 Answers

Advertisements when you click on the button. Fluther non-member’s can see the advertisements. Just log out and you can see the advertisements.

talljasperman (21919

)“Great Answer” (0

) Flag as…

Sites like BuzzFeed does not rely on banner ads. Instead, they create sponsored versions of its articles for advertisers. Big-name advertisers like Coca-Cola, Nike and MTV have sponsored posts on the site, which features no banner advertising.

Smitha (5778

)“Great Answer” (1

) Flag as…

Cookies.

They imbed a tracker into your browser, track your activity, and sell it to sites you might be prone to visiting.

Google (We’re not evil), Chrome and the rest are doing the same on a larger scale. It really pisses me off that the browsers are bringing me what they think I want to hear, rather than the most popular responses to my question.

ibstubro (18804

)“Great Answer” (2

) Flag as…