The Guardian Activate Summit: Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed

Jonah Peretti

Jonah Peretti is founder and CEO of the social news site BuzzFeed, which offers a pioneering mix of shared content and original reporting. With former Politico writer Ben Smith as editor in chief, BuzzFeed now reaches more than 40 million unique users each month, most of whom link through from social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. The site has also piqued interest in the media world for its unique advertising model, which eliminates traditional banner ads in favor of sponsored posts and gives advertisers an opportunity to engage with its users with creative and shareable content. A graduate of the MIT Media Lab, Peretti has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design, and he was one of the cofounders of The Huffington Post in 2005. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by The New York Times and “the poster boy of guerrilla media” by AlterNet.