Mediagazer: With $50 million, BuzzFeed growth calls for sharper lines between news and the other stuff (Caroline O'Donovan/Nieman Journalism Lab)

3:15 AM ET, August 12, 2014

Top News:

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

With $50 million, BuzzFeed growth calls for sharper lines between news and the other stuff — The New York Times' Mike Isaac was the first to report late Sunday night that BuzzFeed had raised $50 million in new venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz. … The story was followed by a chorus of blog posts and press releases.

Felix Salmon / Medium:

Don't compare BuzzFeed's valuation to newspapers'; compare it to agencies, reaching young, mobile, social audiences — Normally, when some big deal is announced in the business world, a rah-rah press release goes out and then smart journalists start explaining what's really going on.

Discussion: @espiers, BuzzFeed, @jhweissmann, @cdixon, @pkafka, @lpolgreen, @nxthompson, @felixsalmon, @mattzeitlin, @dkthomp, @riceid, @riceid, @mathewi, @gaberivera, Tubefilter, The New York Observer, The Hill and Wall Street Journal

Erin Griffith / Fortune:

Jonah Peretti, Ze Frank, and Jonathan Perelman talk about vision for BuzzFeed Motion Pictures — BuzzFeed's big secret: Video is taking over — Buried in the news that BuzzFeed raised $50 million in new funding on Monday is the fact that the 550-person company has reorganized itself.

Discussion: @erickschonfeld, @geoffgolberg and @geoffgolberg

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

A16Z's Chris Dixon: BuzzFeed, which could reach 10X-100X the audience of past media empires, is a bargain at $850M valuation — How Jonah Peretti and BuzzFeed Got to $850 Million — We passed the billion dollar mark awhile ago. Today a hot tech company is worth multiple billions of dollars, easily.

Discussion: Valleywag, Guardian, BuzzMachine, Wall Street Journal, AdExchanger, Om Malik, @edmundlee, BBC, @weegee, @riceid, @nbj914, @timkiladze, The FJP and New York Magazine

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Why BuzzFeed Is Launching Its Own Hollywood Studio

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Latest News & Headlines, Daily Dot, AdAge, chris dixon's blog, Crain's New York, Lost Remote, FishbowlNY, The Wrap and @jesseredniss

Tim Molloy / The Wrap:
Producer Michael Shamberg and comedian Jordan Peele join BuzzFeed's new movie unit as advisers

Discussion: @alexweprin and New York Times

Jezebel:

Jezebel staff accuse Gawker of not dealing with trolls posting violent porn images in comments — We Have a Rape Gif Problem and Gawker Media Won't Do Anything About It — Working at Gawker Media is a dream job for many of the women on staff here at Jezebel.

Kristen Hare / Poynter:
Jezebel staffers wanted to 'light a fire under management's collective ass'

Discussion: Gigaom, The New York Observer, Mediaite and @mathewi

Mat Honan / Wired:

If you like everything on Facebook, brands and content mills like Upworthy dominate News Feed — I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here's What It Did to Me — There's this great Andy Warhol quote you've probably seen before: “I think everybody should like everybody.”

Discussion: Anil Dash, PandoDaily, @jeffchu, AdAge, @mnik, @bobmcmillan, @matthewteller, @numeson, @stevesilberman, The FJP, Mother Jones and @brad_frost

James Poniewozik / TIME:

Hashtag activism after a fatal police shooting serves as grassroots media criticism — IfTheyGunnedMeDown and What Hashtag Activism Does Right — Social media protests have their limits, but one thing they're very, very good at is grassroots media criticism. — The injury, a deadly one, came first.

Discussion: The Root, On The Media, Race, The Verge, Mashable, @jrphillips5, @wendi_c_thomas, @kellyosullivan, New York Times, @mtdukes, @tropicloner and Daily Dot

Sarah Buhr / TechCrunch:

BeachMint Gets Lucky In Joint Venture With Conde Nast — E-commerce platform BeachMint announced it will take over all operations for Lucky Magazine today. The takeover is part of a newly formed joint venture between BeachMint and magazine publishing giant Conde Nast.

Discussion: Adweek, Fashionista, MediaWire Daily, FishbowlNY, PandoDaily, Jezebel, AdAge, WWD Media Headlines, VentureBeat, The Huffington Post, @lapresmidi, @benparr and New York Magazine

Katharine Murphy / Guardian:

Australia's national security proposals will criminalise journalists, says union — Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance joins media companies to warn of ‘chilling effect’ on Australia's public-interest journalism — Australia's media union has warned the Abbott government's looming …

Discussion: @ms_em_ and @castancentre

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Ghost gives its blogging platform a huge upgrade before moving to a 2-4 week release cycle — Ghost has updated its open-source blogging platform with a bevy of technical improvements that should help it to compete with established competitors such as WordPress, Tumblr and Medium.

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

A Year After Its Disastrous Launch, Bustle Is Doing Better Than OK — It would be hard to make a less auspicious entrance than the one Bustle, the women's general interest site started by Bleacher Report co-founder Bryan Goldberg, managed for itself one year ago.

Discussion: @mallelis, @mallelis, @jeffbercovici, @mallelis and @samstahl

Hannah Francis / The Australian:

Australian telecommunications company Telstra acquires video platform Ooyala for $270M — Telstra to buy video platform Ooyala for $291m — Telstra has thrown another $US270m ($290.9m) at video streaming and analytics platform Ooyala to acquire 98 per cent of the company, subject to US regulatory approval.

Discussion: Videomind RSS, Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, TechCrunch and Re/code