Author: Sara Guaglione

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said in an earnings call last week that the company was investing $10 million of resources into BF Island, a social platform BuzzFeed is building that will focus on user-generated content supported by AI technology. 

The project will begin private beta testing in Q2, and details remain slim. But Peretti said the goal is to convert 5% of BuzzFeed’s audience of 34 million monthly users to join BF Island. If the company achieves this, Peretti thinks the initiative will make money.

Peretti expects the platform to be at least on par with some smaller social media platforms, when it comes to growth. And he sees a future in which BF Island’s business grows faster than BuzzFeed’s publishing side. (Axios reported in February that BuzzFeed plans to offer a freemium model for BF Island, where some features are free and others need a paid subscription.)

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As the tit-for-tat tariff fight between the U.S. and Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union continues, marketers are watching closely — and worrying.

To recap: President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs in February then put them off for a month before re-tabling the issue last week, leading to another postponement for Mexico and Canada. The U.K. and Europe haven’t been granted the same grace and this week’s retaliatory tariffs from the E.U. are, at the time of writing, still set to go into force, pending legislative approval in April, as are Canada’s reciprocal steel, sports equipment and computer tariffs. (Bloomberg has a running tally).

The constant change has left marketers’ and agency execs’ heads spinning.

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