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A prominent director of indie movies sees streamers like Kai Cenat and iShowSpeed as the auteur filmmakers of their generation. In an interview with Indiewire, Harmony Korine dubbed Kai and Speed as a few of the “talented and creative minds” who are hosting innovative streams instead of taking traditional Hollywood career paths.

Korine, a director best known for edgy films like Kids and Spring Breakers, discussed the streaming landscape while promoting his new feature Baby Invasion. 30 years into his career, Korine believes Hollywood is at a crossroads, with many decision-makers ignoring the abundance of talent that’s bubbling up on the internet.

“What’s happening in Hollywood — and you’re starting to see Hollywood, I think, crumble creatively — is that they’re losing a lot of the most talented and creative minds to gaming and to streamers,” Korine told Indiewire. “Like IShowSpeed is a movie, Kai Cenat is a movie.

Ze Frank, an early video mastermind at viral publisher BuzzFeed, has departed the digital media giant.

Frank, who transitioned into the role of head and research and development last year after the disbandment of the BuzzFeed Entertainment Group -- over which he previously presided -- is departing his everyday role at the company, but will stay on as an adviser, per The Hollywood Reporter . The Reporter notes that Frank has been contemplating next steps for some time. In the last year, he has also started to post more regularly on his YouTube channel -- which counts 2.4 million subscribers -- with a series called True Facts examining unusual animals.

"BuzzFeed wouldn't be BuzzFeed without Ze's contributions," CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in a memo to staffers on Friday, noting that Frank had decided to “move on to new challenges beyond BuzzFeed." In the memo, Peretti effused that “shards of [Frank's] brilliance have permeated...

VidCon has added a bevy of bellwether 'Featured Creators' for its 10th annual gathering to be held this summer in Anaheim, Calif.

The Viacom-owned convention will welcome Alisha Marie, Madilyn Bailey, Rickey Thompson, Jason Nash, Smosh co-founder Ian Hecox, Simone Giertz, and Matt Steffanina. And given that VidCon plans to fete Og creators in honor of a decade spent in Anaheim, these stars will join a separate group of Founding Featured Creators -- or YouTubers who have been attending the event since its inception. The first round of Founding Featured Creators were announced in October, including Shay Carl, Ze Frank, Tay Zonday, Brittani Louise Taylor, and Julie Nunes.

Featured Creators -- and Founding Featured Creators -- attend VidCon for free, and appear across varied programming initiatives, including panel discussions, Q&As, and meet-ups.

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To celebrate a decade of VidCons, the storied digital convention has announced a new class of ‘Featured Creator’ for this year's event -- or the YouTube stars who are invited free of charge and featured prominently across panels and programming.

This year, as VidCon winks back to its founding days, the Viacom-owned conference will spotlight a handful of Og YouTube stars it's referring to as 'Founding Featured Creators' -- or early viral stars who have attended VidCon since its inception. Nevertheless, many of these creators are no longer active on the platform today.

The initial roster includes controversy-ridden vlogger and entrepreneur Shay Carl, top BuzzFeed exec Ze Frank, deep-voiced crooner Tay Zonday, Lgbtq commentary creator Michael Buckley, musician Dave Days, music video parody artist Brittani Louise Taylor, retired vlogger Will Hyde, and singer Julie Nunes. VidCon founders John and Hank Green have also included themselves within the Founding Featured Creator class,...

BuzzFeed’s video and entertainment group is seeing another high-level departure: Michelle Kempner, VP of operations for BuzzFeed Entertainment Group, is leaving the company to take a role at Facebook.

Kempner is joining Facebook as a leader on the product marketing team, focusing on video products that foster communities. She also will be supporting Facebook’s outreach and support for individual creators.

A four-and-a-half-year veteran of BuzzFeed, Kempner has been responsible for operations across BuzzFeed Entertainment, including social media, analytics, production, post-production, studio, and research operations worldwide. She’s helped launch properties including Tasty, Nifty and Goodful, and headed up strategy for how to replicate BuzzFeed’s most successful content across different channels and countries.

“We’re grateful to Michelle for her many fantastic contributions to BuzzFeed, and we wish her the very best,” a company rep said. BuzzFeed currently does not plan to replace her position.

In January, BuzzFeed reorganized its entertainment group,...

Ze Frank is back. The influential creator, who has spent the past five years at the digital entertainment company BuzzFeed, has shared a video titled "True Facts: Frog Fish," the first new upload on his YouTube channel since 2014.

Years ago, Frank's True Facts videos, in which he revealed curious anecdotes about unusual fauna, was one of the most popular web series on the internet. An episode about angler fish has proven particularly popular, receiving close to 19 million views to date. For his latest guide to the animal kingdom, Frank has examined the deep-dwelling frog fish. And by "examined," we mean "laughed at funny pictures of."

Frank's online video career stretches back to the pre-YouTube days, when he found an audience by showing of his sweet dance skills and launching a program called the show. His status as a pioneer is so great that Hank Green once remarked, “Pretty much everything...

Ze Frank, the former president of BuzzFeed Entertainment Group (Bfeg) -- an umbrella division for all non-news entertainment content established by the viral publisher in 2016 -- has stepped down from that role.

Frank has since been named chief research and development officer at BuzzFeed -- a newly-created position, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to continuing his work on branded content, Frank will now lead a 12-person team -- including longtime BuzzFeed staffers Caitlin Cowie and Ella Mielniczenko -- who will be charged with experimenting with new video formats for distribution on up-and-coming platforms.

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Former Buzzfeed producer Chris Reinacher is launching today his very own YouTube channel in partnership with AwesomenessTV.

Reinacher, who joined BuzzFeed in 2013 and co-created and appeared in countless popular series including Misheard Lyrics and The Taste Buds Food Adventures, resigned from the company last June -- an hour after BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank issued a memo to staffers stating that employees couldn’t work on outside projects without permission, and reiterating that BuzzFeed owned all content created during their tenure.

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NBCUniversal has made an additional $200 million investment in BuzzFeed, the two companies confirmed in a Monday statement. Recode reported the investment last month, saying it valued the digital publisher at $1.7 billion. NBCUniversal infused $200 million into BuzzFeed last year, valuing the company at $1.5 billion — indicating roughly the same valuation after factoring the new money. BuzzFeed reorganized itself into two separate departments earlier this year: an editorial side, led by BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, and an entertainment division, overseen by Ze Frank, the president of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures. Also Read: NBCUniversal Gives BuzzFeed Another $200 Million (Report) “Over the past year,...

By applying its viral content strategy to video productions, BuzzFeed has turned its Motion Pictures wing into a major part of its profile. After spending the first six-or-so years of its existence establishing itself as a forward-thinking source for news, listicles, and other written content, BuzzFeed surpassed a billion video views per month back in 2015. For many of its fans, it is now a video platform first and a news publication second.

Now, BuzzFeed has announced a big change that reflects the evolving ways in which its content is consumed. As reported by Vanity Fair, it will split into two divisions: BuzzFeed News, led by Ben Smith, and BuzzFeed Entertainment Group (Bfeg), led by long-time web video innovator Ze Frank.

BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti announced the reorganization in a memo he sent to the company’s staff. “In this new structure, video won't be the job of just one department,...

BuzzFeed is about to separate its news and entertainment divisions in a company-wide shakeup. CEO Jonah Peretti sent a memo to staffers on Tuesday outlining the changes, which will see the formation of the new BuzzFeed Entertainment Group (Bfeg). BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank will lead Bfeg, with Jeremy Briggs continuing his efforts to expand the company’s video production in New York. Also Read: BuzzFeed v CNN: How One Snarky Comment Ignited a Fight for the Future of News “This new structure will allow us to focus on being the #1 entertainment brand globally, across many platforms, in formats that include short and.

After the termination of two of BuzzFeed Video’s popular personalities, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures President Ze Frank published a memo on Monday clarifying the company’s exclusivity and ownership rules. Politico reported last Wednesday that producer and actor Brittany Ashley and writer, producer and actor Jenny Lorenzo were terminated after appearing in small roles on “Gente-Fied,” a seven-episode web series produced by America Ferrera. “We’re investing heavily in you, and we do ask for a real commitment in return. Concretely, this means that the work you do while you’re on BuzzFeed’s staff belongs to BuzzFeed, and that...

In addition to its more than three billion global monthly video views, 200 million unique monthly visitors to its web destination, and ingenious social media and content distribution strategies, BuzzFeed has something else to brag about. Its homegrown video stars.

The site that's home to innumerable listicles, millennial-inclined quizzes, and actual hard news (peppered with its fair share of investigative journalism) has produced fully-fledged social media and online video celebrities by way of its careful consideration of emotionally-engaging content. BuzzFeed Motion Pictures President, Ze Frank empowers a crafty team of multi-hyphenates (all of whom write, shoot, and edit their own videos) to create content made for niches, but that's appealing to the masses. A few individuals and entities have emerged, attracting their own following beyond their close relationship with the BuzzFeed brand, but none are perhaps more popular than The Try Guys.

Eugene Lee, Ned Fulmer, Keith Habersberger, and Zach Kornfeld...

Since she joined Yahoo News in 2014, Katie Couric has interviewed everyone from Michael Bloomberg to BuzzFeed’s Ze Frank to controversial Instagram star The Fat Jewish. Her latest subject is top YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg, who sat down for a chat at YouTube Space NY.

The interview is split into a number of “conversations” between Couric and the Swedish gaming star. In the first section, PewDiePie marvels at his rapid rise to YouTube success and tries to find a fitting way to describe his job to the former CBS, NBC, and ABC newswoman.

The other segments detail PewDiePie’s various off-YouTube projects, including the book he released earlier this year and the various charitable campaigns he has engineered. Couric and PewDiePie also sit down to play his new mobile game, Legend of the Brofist, which arrived on iOS and Android in September.

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BuzzFeed Motion Pictures has appointed a publisher to oversee operations and growth at the studio.  Michelle Kempner comes into the role after a little more than a year at Bfmp, where she started as a video product lead before quickly rising to director of operations. With her elevated title, she will work closely with Bfmp president Ze Frank to oversee the non-creative lifecycle of a video produced at Bfmp, from research to production to studio to post-production. Her purview also includes social, data and international initiatives. Meanwhile, the creative team will continue to report directly to Frank.  "As

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VidCon 2015 featured a very high-profile interview conducted by Yahoo’s Katie Couric. At a fireside chat for the annual digital media event's industry track, Couric talked to BuzzFeed Motion Pictures’ Ze Frank about the social power behind BuzzFeed’s video content, the story behind the digital media company’s feature film division, and the future of the online video industry.

After joking about how old she felt at her first-ever VidCon among a sea of very vocal teenage girls, Couric launched into a discussion about BuzzFeed’s wildly successful video content and asked Frank if he was obsessed with the idea of popularity. Frank clarified he was more obsessed with the mechanics of popularity than popularity itself, like how a video can make someone say, “That’s totally me," and then influence the individual to share the video with his or entire social sphere.

“Identity is one of the vectors for how we use media,...

Attending VidCon this year? Here are our recommendations. As we do each year, we’ve narrowed down the dozens of Industry, Creator, and Community sessions and highlighted a handful of events that caught our attention. Our suggestions are below, and a full schedule of VidCon happenings can be found on the convention’s website.

An important reminder: Certain sessions will only be open to holders of specific passes. If there’s a particular event you want to attend, make sure you have the right type of ticket, or you’re going to miss out. Without further ado:

Thursday, June 23rd

Fireside Chat With Guillaume De Posch Co-ceo Rtl Group, Led By Jocelyn Johnson, Founder – Videoink

9:35 Am, The Ballroom, Industry Track

European media company Rtl Group has made a huge mark in the online video world by investing in multi-channel networks like BroadbandTV, StyleHaul, and Divimove. During this session, Rtl...

BuzzFeed’s massive success in video is unquestionable. Currently, the video offshoot of the incredibly popular site dedicated to listicles, animated GIFs, and hard news is generating over 250,000,000 views a month on YouTube alone, and that's just on its flagship BuzzFeedVideo channel. If you add up the monthly views from BuzzFeed's rainbow of brother and sister channels (including Blue, Yellow, Violet, Pop), that viewership number jumps up to more than half-a-billion. And again, that's just on YouTube. BuzzFeed execs announced earlier this year that their content is generating over one billion views per month across all of their distribution points and channels. Furthermore, BuzzFeed’s YouTube viewership has grown by over 500% in the last year:

buzzfeed-Social-blade-graph

That is a lot of views.

I like solving puzzles and figuring out what makes systems work (e.g. YouTube annotations, YouTube thumbnails). That's why when I saw BuzzFeed’s unbelievable growth and viewership numbers I asked myself,...

VidCon, the largest online video gathering of the year, is just a few weeks away from returning to Anaheim. As fans race across the Anaheim Convention Center in hopes of meeting their favorite YouTube and Vine stars, members of the online video community will be able to attend informative panels and sessions as part of the event’s Industry Track. One of the most-hyped panels of the weekend will take place on July 23rd, when Katie Couric will sit down for a fireside chat with Ze Frank of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures.

As he has in many other recent interviews, Frank is likely to discuss BuzzFeed Motion Pictures’ current ventures, which include a number of planned long-form projects. The chat will mark Couric’s first-ever appearance at VidCon. The former ABC newswoman has frequently explored social media topics since joining Yahoo at the beginning of 2014.

“We’ve set the stage for Katie Couric,...

Social Media Week Los Angeles (Smwla) boasts a variety of speakers, industry experts, and well-known brands throughout the event. But some of these influencers stand out from the rest because of their global impact via social media. Tubefilter and What’s Trending are honoring these impressive movers and shakers in the fourth annual Social 25 list.

The Social 25 list was curated by Tubefilter’s Drew Baldwin and What’s Trending’s Shira Lizar. This year’s honorees include several well-known digital figures, such as vlogger Bethany Mota, Vine star King Bach, Viners Cameron Dallas and Nash Grier, and YouTuber Cassey Ho (aka Blogilates). Several honorees are representing digital brands in this year’s Social 25 list as well, like Ze Frank of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures and Stephanie Horbaczewski of StyleHaul.

These digital honorees join other influencers like actress Sofia Vergara (who just inked a deal with Fusion and Snapchat for a reality web series), comedienne Amy Schumer,...

For years, BuzzFeed has created online video based on the experimental idea of seeing what resonates most with viewers. This approach has earned the media publisher one billion video views per day across its entire site. And now BuzzFeed has its Motion Pictures department, which launched back in August 2014 to start specializing in both short-form digital content and long-form films.

Obviously, BuzzFeed and its Motion Picture division know what they’re doing in terms of online video. Much of that success is thanks to Ze Frank, the President of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures (Bfmp). Frank started out as a vlogger way back in 2006; since then, the Bfmp president has helped produce more than 3,000 videos for BuzzFeed and mold the site’s online video strategy to what it is today.

At a panel for Social Media Week Los Angeles, Tubefilter’s Drew Baldwin will sit down with Frank to talk about Bfmp...

Social Media Week Los Angeles 2015 (Smwla) is just around the corner. From June 8-12, 2015, hundreds of industry executives and professionals will meet to discuss everything happening in the world of social media. And the entire event promises to be full of can’t-miss sessions and speakers.

Hosted at the Bergamot Station Arts Center, Smwla will include a keynote conversation with BuzzFeed’s Ze Frank about everything he’s learned about viral sharing tactics. Later, Scmwla will have a chat with Danny Zappin, Founder and CEO of Zealot Networks. Endemol Beyond will host a panel about the new breed of digital celebrities, and Indiewire will discuss how digital distribution is changing the indie film industry. There are also sessions on how to analyze and act on social data, deal with privacy issues online, and how to effectively use Snapchat at live events.

Smwla sessions will even cover some of today’s...

The 2015 edition of YouTube’s annual Brandcast is in the books, and the world’s most-watched video site made sure to let advertisers know it is still number one. Instead of pitching the original programming it recently announced, YouTube let its star creators speak to attendees, offered testimonials from brands, and shared some impressive stats about its ongoing growth. Among other numbers, CEO Susan Wojcicki noted how YouTube now has more viewers on mobile alone than any cable channel.

YouTube’s ongoing growth on mobile is just one part of its continued upswing. Wojcicki said the number of viewers on the site is up 40% since last year, and watch time is up 50%. Many of these new viewers are coming to YouTube via smartphones and tablets, where watch time is up 90%. “Successful entertainment platforms of the future will all share those five characteristics,” said Wojcicki, “they’ll be global, diverse, mobile,...

Got your Summer film calendar planned yet? On Wednesday The Academy announced their May and June programs which will explore the past, present and especially the future of moviegoing, as the availability of a wide variety of platforms for viewing films alters the habits of today’s audiences.

“The New Audience: Moviegoing in a Connected World,” a live panel presentation on May 12, complements “This Is Widescreen,” an eight-week screening series beginning May 1 that illustrates one of the ways filmmakers more than a half-century ago responded to the competition of that era, television.

The New Audience: Moviegoing In A Connected World

Tuesday, May 12│7:30 P.M.│Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills

Moderator Krista Smith, Vanity Fair’s executive West Coast editor, will lead an onstage panel discussion of how filmmakers and studios seek to take advantage of the wide variety of viewing platforms available to contemporary audiences.

Scheduled guests include Walt...

On April 27th, BuzzFeed Evp of Video Ze Frank and his colleagues will discuss their company's online video strategies at Digital Content Newfronts. This won't be BuzzFeed's first presentation at the annual sales event, but it will be the company's first Newfronts address since it ramped up its BuzzFeed Motion Pictures venture in August 2014.

Industry professionals are curious about BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which, as its name suggests, will add long-form film and TV projects to BuzzFeed's nonstop barrage of short-form web videos. What will these film and TV projects look like? How will BuzzFeed Motion Pictures build its upcoming slate? What role will the company's short-form content play in its long-form video plans? These are all questions Frank began to answer during a keynote interview at the annual Miptv conference in Cannes, France.

As Frank explains, BuzzFeed's massive online video presence (which includes "a billion views a month," according to...

BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank is to deliver a joint keynote with producer Michael Shamberg at Mip Digital Fronts next month.

Frank is behind BuzzFeed’s growing video division while veteran Us producer Shamberg is an advisor to BuzzFeed Motion Pictures.

The pair will discuss “the future of digital Hollywood” and address the shifts in production and distribution that are challenging traditional TV and studio models. The keynote will take place on April 14 in the Palais in Cannes as part of MipTV.

Frank joined BuzzFeed in 2012 as the site’s evp of video, where he focused on finding new formats in social video. He is known for creating viral projects such as Earth Sandwich, Young Me/Now Me and Chillout Song.

In 2006, he created The Show with Ze Frank - an early template for the modern video blog - and launched BuzzFeed Motion Pictures in August 2014, of which he is president. The video division...

Creating digital content in the age of digital can be an extremely liberating experience for young filmmakers — but it can also pose numerous challenges when digital and traditional media are still trying to reach common ground and a mutually beneficial way of working together. That was a big topic at the innovators’ panel at TheGrill conference at the Montage Beverly Hills on Tuesday, where MiTu Network Beatriz Acevedo, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank, Tapp co-founder Jeff Gaspin and indie film producer Sev Ohanian discussed the opportunities and stumbling blocks as they attempt to bring compelling video content to...

Pulp Fiction exec and BuzzFeed consultant hails digital opportunities for filmmakers.

Acclaimed Us producer Michael Shamberg has hailed the filmmaking opportunities afforded by digital platforms and new technology, during his Zurich Summit keynote today (Sept 27).

“There are enormous opportunities in this space,” the Pulp Fiction executive producer told Screen ahead of his address.

“Digital is the medium of now and it will only grow. Within a year or two in the Us there will be more money spent on digital advertising than on TV advertising – $80bn per year. As the revenue shifts for storytellers, more and more Hollywood industry will work in the digital space.”

“Just as Quentin Tarantino wrote scripts while working in a video store and a young Steven Spielberg made films on Super 8 in his bedroom, future filmmakers will emerge from having made films that they post online,” continued the Oscar-nominated producer whose credits include Get Shorty, Erin Brockovich, [link...

BuzzFeed is ramping up its video goals in a big way. As the media company looks at creating episodic series and feature-length films, it hired Andrew Gauthier as executive producer for its video department. Based out of Los Angeles, Gauthier will be responsible for a team of 40 producers. He was already the lead producer of the BuzzFeed team which produced some of the company’s hit videos like “Photoshopping Real Women Into Cover Models,” so he seems well-suited for the executive producer role as BuzzFeed positions itself as a creator of longer-form content. Last year at Digital Content Newfronts, BuzzFeed’s then-executive producer of video, Ze Frank, discussed how the site’s audiences seem to resonate with emotional and personal videos which are aimed at one specific group of people. As the new Ep of BuzzFeed Video, Gauthier told Variety that “there is a desire among viewers to get attached to characters,...

The New York Times broke the news this Sunday that BuzzFeed received $50 million in funding for their Los Angeles-based Motion Pictures arm. Recognizing the massive revenue generated by the company’s video content, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti hired Ze Frank, “web video pioneer,” to produce a “rapid-fire” stream of everything from “six second clips made for social media to more traditional 22-minute shows” under the new banner. Eventually, the company will look to produce feature-length films and TV series, not unlike Netflix. Another thing BuzzFeed Motion Pictures has in common with the online streaming paradigm is an unsurprising affinity for data science. In […]...

The New York Times broke the news this Sunday that BuzzFeed received $50 million in funding for their Los Angeles-based Motion Pictures arm. Recognizing the massive revenue generated by the company’s video content, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti hired Ze Frank, “web video pioneer,” to produce a “rapid-fire” stream of everything from “six second clips made for social media to more traditional 22-minute shows” under the new banner. Eventually, the company will look to produce feature-length films and TV series, not unlike Netflix. Another thing BuzzFeed Motion Pictures has in common with the online streaming paradigm is an unsurprising affinity for data science. In […]...

BuzzFeed is getting bigger, and as it grows, its decision makers have tabbed video as a key area for expansion. The company known for its viral web content has raised a $50 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, and according to the New York Times, BuzzFeed will invest "far more resources" in its video business. BuzzFeed's video division took off in 2012 when the company hired Ze Frank as its Evp of Video. Frank has arguably influenced the online video community as much any other single creator, and he was able to successfully combine his savvy with the social media-friendly formula that has been a driving force behind BuzzFeed's success. In just eighteen months, the channels in BuzzFeed's video network combined to score a billion views. BuzzFeed's latest viral video hit came a week ago, when it invited Americans to try Indian snacks: BuzzFeed is clearly pleased with the rapid emergence of its video wing,...

Hank Green is the co-founder of VidCon, which means he's awfully busy right about now. Nonetheless, he has managed to find some time to educate his viewers on the early history of the online video world. In his latest video on the Vlogbrothers channel, Green noted a handful of pre-YouTube viral videos and discussed the ways they influenced future efforts. As Green explains, the first viral video was the "Oogachaka Baby", which spread via email in 1997. For Green, though, online video kicked into high gear in 2000 with the launch of Homestar Runner, which he claims "remains the best online video project in history." After mentioning a few other early Internet classics, such as The End of the World and Neil Cicierega's "animutation" videos, Green arrives at Ze Frank's the show, which he calls "the most important video series of all-time." According to Green, the show's two-way nature (in...

A 3-minute commercial for Friskies cat food created by Buzzfeed has gone viral, with close to 5,900,000 views since it was posted online June 5.

Friskies And Buzzfeed Create Viral Ad 'Dear Kitten'

The video, narrated by Buzzfeed’s Ze Frank, was clearly designed to be a viral video ad. Entitled ‘Dear Kitten,’ the video is about an older cat who gives advice to his owner’s new kitten.

“Perhaps you are here to replace me, but I must do my duty in educating you on your new surroundings,” the cat begins before launching into the best rooms of the house (the bedroom) and which spots are best for napping.

“Dear Kitten, you should be aware that there are two kinds of food. The first is sort of a dehydrated brown nibblet. I think they gave us these because they’re training us to be astronauts, just a guess. The second kind is wet food.

In September 2012, BuzzFeed's online video presence was represented by a single channel claiming just under 10,000 subscribers. 18 months later, BuzzFeed's online video content has racked up more than a billion views across several channels. At a presentation at Digital Content Newfronts, BuzzFeed Evp of Video Ze Frank explained the secret sauce behind the company's rapid rise to online video prominence. As with much of the company's content, BuzzFeed's web videos are heavily driven by social sharing. Frank noted that only 20% of the company's views come from subscribers, and only 15% come directly from BuzzFeed. Instead, videos are created to be "sharable" rather than "consumable", and BuzzFeed pays close attention to the statements that accompany social shares. From this research, it has uncovered three general reasons why viewers share BuzzFeed videos: Some share videos that contain relevant to a subject they care about, some use shares to provide an "emotional gift" to friends,...

As in previous years, the interactive third of the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival will feature dozens of panels related to the online video industry. Attending all of the relevant events is impossible (unless you have a Time Turner), but here are some highlights to check out across the five days of SXSW Interactive. All times are local (Cst) Friday, March 7th Grace Helbig at the Samsung Blogger Lounge, 2:30 pm - For the third year in a row, Samsung and What's Trending are teaming up for the Samsung Blogger Lounge, which is located at 301 San Jacinto Blvd. This year's guests include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jenny Slate, and Dan Harmon, but YouTube fans will be most interested in hearing Grace Helbig talk about the success of Camp Takota and her other projects. Super Fandom In The Digital Age, 5 pm - Andy Cohen of Bravo will host this panel, which will...

When Brooklyn Nine Nine won the Golden Globe for best television comedy on Sunday, my first thought was, “That’s the end of that.”

I mean, I love the show. I thought the episode that came after the Globes on Tuesday was really funny (although I don’t want to see any romances develop within the department. None. At All. Ever.).

But now I know that other people like it. It’s not cool anymore.

You may ask yourself, “Why does a woman who is 60 years old care about what is cool?” And you would be right. I have long held the belief that no one can be cool once he or she has children (exception that proves the rule: David Bowie). My colleague, Mike Gold, disagrees, telling me that his daughter’s friends think he is. I suspect they do think he’s cool – for a parent.

There is...

Darren at the rehearsals for today’s Capitol Fourth Independence Day Concert.

Birthday shoutouts go to Becki Newton, who is 35, Koko the Gorilla is 42, and Neil Simon is 86.

Today is a holiday, so the news is light, so this Briefs will be briefer than usual. And just a reminder that we’ll be on a light schedule tomorrow, but will have a Meme, Briefs, Liveblog, and a few special posts.

Is The Lone Ranger about to become an epic flop?

More upheaval at OutServe-sldn.

America’s Secret Queer past.

Below you can see Ze Frank‘s Nsfw “Song For Freud.” I think I saw a few scrotums, too.

Here’s the latest Where The Bears Are.

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great. I’ve been there, Goat. “Ever since Unicorn moved into the neighborhood, Goat has been feeling out of sorts. Goat thought his bike was cool-until he saw that Unicorn could fly to school!

You love him for his True Facts and Sad Diary series already, but upon this day, we declare Ze Frank king of internet (again).

Seeing that he has created this all too unprecedented tribute for Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis – scratch that, father of penis envy – we'd say Frank deserves to hold the title at least until the next Amazing cat video breaks our google alert.

Ze Frank has made the song available for free download here.

CNN, one of the most trusted brands in the news industry, is teaming up with BuzzFeed to edify the internet generation. The two companies have joined together to launch a new YouTube channel, dubbed CNN BuzzFeed, which is billed as a news video channel for millennials, BuzzFeed and CNN said Monday. To provide content for the new channel, BuzzFeed will build a social video studio in Los Angeles. The video team will be led by BuzzFeed's executive vice president of video Ze Frank. The video content, which will include both current and archival...

Ze Frank has uploaded 40-some-odd videos to his YouTube channel in the months since he raised $146,752 from 3,900 backers via a Kickstarter campaign to resurrect the internet’s preeminent video blog (from which all others are more or less derived). In the span of those 40-some-odd videos, A Show has welcomed a handful of Sports Racers to make guest appearances and/or contributions on and/or to program, including at least one artist with an affinity for monsters and at least one talented actor from NBC’s The Office with a soon-to-launch YouTube channel that’s part of the video sharing sites $100 Million Originals Initiative. Rainn Wilson stepped in front of the Ze Frank bookcase to help A Show’s host explain the complexity, confusion, and condition that is the teenage brain. More specifically, Rainn and Ze together fumbled through and later exquisitely answered a viewer’s question about why adults...

Anaheim, Calif. -- A long line of teenagers has formed inside a cavernous convention center.

They're waiting to nab an autograph from Rebecca Black, the girl who achieved infamy with her nasally music video "Friday." Over in the lobby, folks are sticking out their smartphones to capture a photo of Yogi the Welsh corgi, a dog who accidentally set a kitchen on fire, while others have surrounded a seated Paul "Bear" Vasquez, the man who unabashedly gushed over the sight of a double rainbow.

It's the third annual VidCon, a gathering of online video creators, viral video stars and the people who click "like" on them. The circus atmosphere is the ultimate physical manifestation of activities usually reserved for the privacy of one's lap or hand.

The event outgrew its previous digs at a Los Angeles hotel and has moved south to a convention center in the land of Disney's Magic Kingdom,...

Fred Armisen is no stranger to online video. The Saturday Night Live cast member noted for being the best Saturday Night Live cast member of this current crop of Saturday Night Live cast members (especially if these guys actually leave the show) made his first foray into the web series world at a time when many Hollywood notables were making their first forays into the web series world. Armisen and former Sleater-Kinney power-chorder and current Wild Flag-frontowmen Carrie Brownstein debuted their more “kind-of comedy than actual comedy” sketches under the banner of Thunderant during the Writers Guild Strike of 2007 and 2008. The dozens of videos mostly comprised of deadpan humor that pokes fun at leftish-leaning subcultures particularly prominent in America’s Pacific Northwest are funny in both ha ha and Lol kinda ways, as well as super successful. The vids served as more or less of a prequel and/or pilot for Portlandia,...

Ze Frank raised $500,000 in angel and venture-capital funding in early 2010 for Ze Frank Games. It’s a tech startup oriented towards leveraging what Frank learned from being awesome at the internet for over a decade (evidence of that awesome includes Young Me Now Me, The Show, How to Dance Properly, and more) and applying that knowledge to social gaming in the form of products like Star.me, a “platform that facilitates rich and deep engagement for brands and celebrities.” Ze Frank also raised $146,752 in Kickstarter funding in early March 2012 to resurrect The Show (his daily, year-long, highly interactive and politically-passionate-but-still-whimsical online video experiment that more or less ended in March 2007) and turn it into A Show (an at least-three times-weekly web series that's more or less the same thing as its predecessor except with a better camera and the use of more social media tools). And news just broke that...

After a five-year-and-twenty-three day-hiatus (or a three-year hiatus, depending on how you count such things) and one helluva successful Kickstarter campaign (which raised a total of $146,752 from 3,900 backers) Ze Frank is back online with an original web series. A Show just launched today. It features the familiar face of the online video world’s most beloved (and probably most influential) individual in an unfamiliar 16:9 frame giving his fans a primer on what to expect from his at-first-at-least-three-times-a-week web series. For all the Sports Racers in the audience who were fervent fans of Ze Frank’s The Show, your expectations for the new program should include a totally normal amount of blinking and the fancy addition of overlays and other graphic effects to accompany Ze’s handsome mug. For all the everyone in the room, your expectations for the new program should include a lot of honest self-reflection and active...