The biggest “must read” story making its way around the web this week is New York Magazine’s profile of BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti and his enviably successful approach to paid content.

To sum things up, Peretti, who also helped launch The Huffington Post, was a math student at MIT who grew fascinated with the concept of viral memes and later created BuzzFeed as a tool to identify and facilitate the spread of said memes via algorithm. His goal was to truly capture the magic behind “word of mouth” buzz (the cat GIFs and political reporting came later). Most of the Internet and quite a few of the biggest brands in the world agree that Peretti has uncovered a secret formula for creating native advertising that might just go viral. Here are some revelations from the profile:

• BuzzFeed editors work directly with marketing specialists from partner brands to create content in a “newsroom”-style environment.
• The vast majority of traffic for both BuzzFeed originals and paid posts comes from social sharing.
• The site’s most popular posts don’t go viral after a single big-name personality shares them — they’re simply picked up by several isolated individuals who share them in small groups (average nine Facebook friends) that spawn small “share” groups of their own.
• There’s a science to this. Peretti has literally devised a formula.

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We know it’s something of a stereotype that traditional and especially print media tend to take their time in arriving at/commenting on a hot story. Such is the case with The New York Times, which made waves this weekend by reporting on a phenomenon that PR and marketing folk already know quite well: paid or sponsored content.

We’re not saying that the many talented reporters at the Times have ignored the trend until now; this Media Decoder post regarding The Atlantic‘s Scientology advertorial scandal mentions the fact that BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post and other top web publishers already maintain sponsored content sections. But the weekend’s article does seem to be the first time the Times has deemed such content worthy of comment in print.

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This week we posted on Weber Shandwick‘s decision to publicize its new content-creation wing, Mediaco, and what that means for the future of PR. This morning we had the opportunity to speak with Steve Rubel, chief content strategist at Edelman PR, to go over how his firm is addressing this newest chapter in the ongoing “PR vs. marketing vs. advertising” debate.

How does the Weber Shandwick announcement relate to recent “creative” moves by Edelman?

There’s a lot of hype in the never-ending hunt for shiny objects in marketing, but the bigger picture here is that the economics of the industry have changed – demand side platforms (ad exchanges) have made advertising more efficient, which caused the price of CPM (cost per impression) and ads themselves to plummet. This is good for the industry but bad for publishers, because media outlets squeezed by tech developments can’t make the leap to other revenue streams like subscription, video, etc.

This has led to a greater willingness to open their platforms to branded/sponsored content, thereby empowering marketers to make good on their longtime desire tell their stories their own way on some of world’s largest websites (Ed. note: see The Washington Post). That is the big change here.

Some people say this is all old news. How do you respond to that point?

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Our apologies for missing this story amidst all our posts about companies hiring brand journalists to create original “sticky” content: The Walt Disney Company‘s new “Oh My Disney” blog is a perfect illustration of the larger trend.

Excepting the Pixar films, Disney has had trouble establishing franchises in recent years. But the blog’s content capitalizes on the company’s established characters by turning them into sharable themed posts like “It’s Easy Being Green“, a St. Patrick’s Day celebration of the many Disney characters who happen to be emerald in color. Other examples include “15 More Reminders That You’re Great Today“, which features inspirational thoughts from several decades worth of characters, and “Disney Theme Songs to Make You Miss Your Childhood“, which is fairly self-explanatory (though we do like the disclaimer “Read this only if you’re open to adding nostalgic joy to your day”).

It’s a brilliant win-win for Disney: promote the larger brand with original content while simultaneously reminding fans of the older properties that they love (and indirectly encouraging them to buy related merchandise). We have to say, though: a quick glance at the blog’s layout makes us think that BuzzFeed might want to consider demanding royalties.

What do we think of this entry into the original content sweepstakes? And what sort of brands could follow Disney’s lead by creating their own branded blogs?

Sometimes the key for a startup or other new business venture looking to break out can be a single article in a big-name magazine or newspaper. What startup founder looking for “Angel investors” wouldn’t want to say “did you see us in the Wall Street Journal?”

Of course, in order to receive such press mentions, businesses usually require the services of people called publicists or PR professionals who specialize in pitching the story of the scruffy startup to big name glossies, trade papers–or even lowly blogs like ours!

But for those who want to get all those press mentions on your website without actually, you know, doing the work, we present The Startup Legitimizer–a single webpage that can fill all your startup PR needs with a few simple clicks. Which publications would give your cred the biggest boost? The New York Times? TechCrunch? BuzzFeed? TED Talks?!

These famous names, divided into the “kind of legit” and “really legit” categories, even come in pre-organized bundles like “innovators” and “game changers”, which are totally different things. Just choose your favorites, copy and paste the HTML code and say goodbye to pesky PR flacks forever! Check us out!

(Just kidding. Startups absolutely should invest in PR services. And thanks to Digiday for the tip.)

Well, this is certainly NOT a case of earned media: this week a Department of Justice filing covered by BuzzFeed revealed that the current Malaysian government hired PR firms to pay opinion writers at various publications throughout the United States, encouraging them to write op-eds denouncing their primary opponent.

The main purpose of the articles, published by magazines and websites ranging from The National Review and The Guardian to The Huffington Post, was to distinguish current Prime Minister Najib Razak from opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim by claiming that he is a moderate Muslim while Ibrahim is a militant Islamist. (Note: according to advocacy groups like Amnesty International, Razak’s government also has a long history of human rights violations like restricting freedom of speech and religion and executing political enemies. They also jailed Ibrahim on what many saw to be “trumped up” charges.)

This was perfect subject material for writers who wanted to push the message that moderation is the only way for Islamist political parties empowered by the recent “Arab Spring” movement to engage with the rest of the world. One of the writers even told BuzzFeed today that “It was actually a fairly standard PR operation”, though he lost his column after the relationship was revealed.

We’re not particularly familiar with Malaysian politics, but the fact that these op-ed writers didn’t feel the need to reveal the backers who were paying them to voice specific opinions is a perfect example of why “PR” is a bad word for many people.

The Baltimore Ravens may have won the game, but the team really came in second on Super Bowl Sunday: first was a tie between Oreo and current Queen of the World Beyoncé.

Yet, despite all this immeasurably positive publicity, Bey’s PR team didn’t feel like the next-day coverage was quite as “flattering” as it could/should have been. You’d think anyone would love a post like BuzzFeed‘s “33 Fiercest Moments from Beyoncé’s Halftime Show“–the page has 33 thousand likes, for God’s sake. But the singer’s rep wasn’t happy, and she quickly responded by calling and emailing the site to “respectfully” request that its editors remove or replace seven of the post’s 30 still shots.

BuzzFeed’s editors, clearly annoyed at this nitpickery, decided to highlight the anal retentive PR request by re-posting the email along with the very pictures singled out as “unflattering”. While the site “redacted” the publicist’s specific email address, the post includes her full name and company–so any haters with time on their hands can easily email her.

Our question for readers: Who’s in the wrong here?

Did BuzzFeed overreact by brazenly “shooting the messenger”, or should the PR team have expected this kind of response to a completely unreasonable request?

Whatever your opinion, we think it’s safe to say the move backfired.

Native advertising: you’ve heard the term, and you’re going to hear it quite often in the months ahead. We haven’t directly addressed it on this blog yet, so here goes:

First: any web surfer will tell you that banner ads (aka “traditional paid media”) are on the way out. They do provide “impressions” or glances, but very few people actually click them.

A debate on the topic within the PR industry has all but resolved itself at this point: integrated or “native” spots created through “brand journalism” are part of the PR/marketing landscape along with “sponsored” tweets and the like. They’re here to stay, and PR teams need to start creating more of them ASAP or they’ll find themselves replaced by other third-party content creators and media buyers. (Here’s a great post on the issue from our friends at Spin Sucks.)

Right. But what does “native” mean, exactly? Well, this Mashable infographic made our heads hurt, so we’ll give you a better example: Check out The Awl, a sort of literary/culture blog that happens to be one of our favorite web destinations. Scroll down the page a bit and you’ll come across at least one post that looks slightly different than the rest (they’re usually hosted on a grey background and filed under the “sponsored stories” heading).

These are stories commissioned and created by brands like Pillsbury, HBO, Samsung, and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. These brands (and the firms that represent them) want to court members of The Awl’s audience, and they came up with a good way to do so: create original content that complements the site’s existing stories.

It’s fairly simple, really:

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Today brings the unsurprising news that BuzzFeed, the king of all things quick, visual and viral, received nearly $20 million in the latest round of financing from its investors. This development follows a very successful 2012 in which the company hired Politico‘s Ben Smith as its editor in chief and raised $15.5 million from various venture capital groups.

The news also provides a nice example of a carefully managed PR roll-out: Ad Age and The New York Times ran the embargoed story this morning before the press release hit and every other site (like ours) jumped on it.

Will BuzzFeed be “the next great media company”? Managers intend to use much of the new money for “international expansion and staff increases”, and while we’re encouraged by the fact that the meme-heavy site began running more long-form pieces and political coverage this year, we hope this new round of funding means more collaborations with the smartasses at McSweeney’s and more posts like this year’s truly epic (NSFW) gross-out listicle to end all listicles: “84 Things That Aren’t on An Everything Bagel.”

This afternoon, Buzzfeed Shift brings news of a pending discrimination lawsuit against French makeup giant Sisley Cosmetics that could turn out to be a very big deal.

In short, an employee returned from maternity leave to face questions about her future reproductive plans from managers who strongly implied that a second child “wouldn’t be good for her job” and all but threatened to make her “redundant” by eliminating her position. She also claims that her higher-ups increased her workload and that a less-than-sympathetic HR rep effectively told her “my hands are tied”. Six months after returning from a second maternity leave, she lost her job.

We don’t have all the details in this case, but the narrative as we know it paints Sisley as a company that views pregnant employees and mothers as liabilities. Perhaps more troubling is the fact that discrimination lawsuits are nothing new for this old-school Parisian brand: In 2011, a black employee who worked for the company’s Saks Fifth Avenue counter filed suit after claiming that her manager repeatedly used racial slurs when addressing her and complained about a lack of “blonde” sales reps. A third employee sued in 2009 after a boss forbid her from sitting down behind the cosmetics counter despite the fact that she’d just gone through a spinal surgery that limited her range of movement. Only the last case has been resolved.

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