"Cute animals deserve respect."
BuzzFeed co-founder Jonah Peretti told that to the audience at technology conference South by Southwest last year. And he should know.
His site is investing in original reporting and traditional journalism, but the newsroom has grown on the backbone of truly viral posts which sustain BuzzFeed from a monetary perspective. Many of those viral posts have to do with cute animals.
For example, one article titled "Basset Hounds Running" amassed 1.2 million page views.
Because of its highly entertaining animal posts, BuzzFeed has gotten a reputation for producing pieces of "fluff" journalism rather than "real" journalism. In other words, it's great at culling together intriguing photos of animals doing ridiculous things, but it has yet to establish itself as a largely trusted source of news. Still, it announced it was profitable in September and it had 130 million monthly unique visitors in November.
Today, a startup called The Dodo launched, and it may be trying to capture some of BuzzFeed's success with animals. But instead of having to make excuses for its animal coverage (like BuzzFeed sometimes has to do) The Dodo is embracing animals right from the get-go. It has funding from Greycroft, Softbank Capital, Sterling Equities and RRE. Fred Harmon of Oak Investment Partners personally invested.
The Dodo is being run by Salon's former Editor-in-Chief, Kerry Lauerman. It is co-founded by Izzie Lerer, whose father Ken co-founded The Huffington Post with BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti and whose brother, Ben, co-founded Thrillist. The Lerers also started a venture arm, Lerer Ventures, which has invested in 185 startups over the past few years. Peretti is an advisor of Lerer Ventures, but he isn't associated with The Dodo.*
The Dodo is the first website built entirely on another Lerer Ventures startup, RebelMouse. This makes it easy for The Dodo to pull in cute animal posts from social media and takes pressure off The Dodo to produce original content, which is more expensive.
At first glance, The Dodo is cute overload. But Lerer says there will be substance to some of the stories.
"Caring about animals in the past has often been dismissed as overly sentimental or radical, but now the whole movement is moving mainstream," Izzie Lerer justifies her site in a press release. "There's a growing readiness and willingness to listen to people speak about issues concerning animals, and The Dodo will provide a home for these kinds of conversations.”
In short, you'll never see animals being mistreated on The Dodo. Instead, it's a place that celebrates pets.
It's tempting to think: why does the web need yet another destination for cute animal photos?
But when you stop and mull it over, it's brilliant. The Dodo is setting itself up to be BuzzFeed but without the baggage of having to be a "real" news and journalism site. It can celebrate animals, and celebrate all the viral traffic that comes with it.
Not a believer? Fine. Then try not to read one of their articles:
"Pug and Baby Battle Over a Cookie."
Here's what it looks like:
*Ken Lerer is personally invested in Business Insider. Jonah Peretti is not associated with The Dodo as was previously written.