July 3, 2013

Buzzfeed has unveiled a brand new version of its mobile application that permits users to customise their story feed.

Since Buzzfeed offers a various array of content, the corporate decided that users should want to personalize their very own story feed to get the inside track that it most relevant to them. As an example, users can decide in the event that they want more political, business or culture news.

“People expect their phones and iPads to be so much more personal experiences than when using a desktop Web page,” said Chris Johanesen, vice chairman of product at BuzzFeed, Ny.

“Part of this has to do with the smaller, more-focused screen experience,” he said. “Part is people have a tendency to be dipping inside and out in their phones while doing other things. And part is the shifting nature of social media — your phone is a social device that the majority use primarily for text, email, Facebook and Twitter.”

A personalized experience
The “My Feed” portion of the app lets users personalize their story feed and choose which topics they want to read more of. Users even have the choice of choosing which topics they’d prefer to not examine.

The new feature was mainly driven by user feedback – readers told Buzzfeed that they didn’t wish to see particular types of content of their story feed.

Some of the themes were seen as polarizing. Responding to this feedback, Buzzfeed realized that users must be in a position to eliminate these topics from their story feeds.

The app is supplied in Apple’s App Store, and is anticipated to even be available in Google Play in the coming months.

Going viral
Buzzfeed has prided itself on its viral model, one within which stories are created with the precise intention of going viral in social media. This successfully increases readership by expanding the reach in their stories.

This new personalized story feed may enhance their viral model by giving users a stronger percentage of reports that they’d have an interest in sharing via social media.

The app also carries some significance for the mobile ad market.

Buzzfeed have been pushing native opportunities to brands for it slow now, and the brand new feature could be helpful with regards to catering ads to users in response to their personalized story feed.

The goal of Buzzfeed’s new feature is to spotlight making the mobile reading experience more personalized and relevant when readers likely have less attention on their devices than they do on a website.

“Partly it’s in regards to the focused, more personal experience on mobile,”  Mr. Johanesen said.

“But now we have experimented with personalization at the desktop Web after we did the GE-sponsored ‘Efficiency Machine’ project, and we do expect to bring this functionality back to the website sooner or later,” he said.

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York