BuzzFeed Creator Wants to Make the Internet Fun Again

Jonah Peretti announced the spin-off Branch Office, which will develop entertainment game apps featuring quizzes and social experiences.

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Noticing that AI has largely been described as a way to replace or simulate humans, Jonah Peretti, CEO and founder of BuzzFeed, decided to try something different: using it to reinvent how people connect on the internet—and have fun along the way.

Here are four key points to understand BuzzFeed’s new venture:

1) The plan is to “make the Internet fun again.” According to Jonah and his partner Bill Shouldis, this will happen through a new company: Branch Office, a BuzzFeed spin-off. The idea is to launch several gaming apps—but not exactly video games. The concept is closer to the quizzes and social experiences that helped the site transform the media industry about a decade ago.

2) The internet dramatically reduced the cost of media distribution. There is no longer a need for trucks, newsstands, or movie theaters to reach audiences. Now AI is beginning to do the same for production, lowering the cost of creating content that today requires millions of dollars from studios. In that scenario, Jonah believes value will migrate toward what big tech cannot easily automate: taste, culture, and community.

3) The goal is not to reject technology, but to use it differently. The intention is to build experiences that only a company that “truly cares about content” can deliver—unlike big tech companies, whose leaders, according to him, “see content merely as data, a way to generate revenue for shareholders.”

4) Some ideas have already been quietly tested inside BuzzFeed. Jonah and Bill said they have been experimenting with app concepts for years within the company. Some prototypes emerged from that process, and two were officially launched during the session: Conjure and BF Island.

Conjure sends users daily photo challenges—a mix of BeReal, The X-Files, and Pokémon Go—designed to get people off their feeds and out into the real world. BF Island, meanwhile, is a private space where users post photos without algorithms or followers—just their group of friends and their inside jokes. Another app, Quiz Party, is expected to launch soon—a kind of quiz-based social network that, when you think about it, is surprising it didn’t exist already.

At a festival where many speakers have been emphasizing the importance of human relationships and vulnerability, Jonah’s presentation ended up embodying exactly that. There were connection problems, visible nerves on stage, messy slides, and somewhat uncertain answers to questions such as monetization.

It’s worth noting that, just the day before, the press reported financial difficulties at BuzzFeed. That doesn’t necessarily mean Branch Office will solve them—but seeing experimental ideas launched amid that backdrop captured the spirit of the moment. Not surprisingly, many attendees praised the session as refreshingly spontaneous compared with far more polished talks.