BuzzFeed turns to students to drive global growth
BuzzFeed has announced that it is to crowdsource translation work from English language students to produce Spanish, French and Portuguese versions of its website.
Posts made in English on the social network will be translated by students via a free language-learning app called Duolingo which will enable foreign students of English to translate BuzzFeed articles as part of their coursework.
Multiple students will work on each article before a patented algorithm combines the best of these into one professionally written post.
BuzzFeed is currently available in English only but is keen to expand into international markets after tripling its traffic over the past year to reach 85m visitors in August.
BuzzFeed founder John Peretti said: “Social is increasingly global so building new audiences who speak different languages, and helping spread that language at the same time, is a natural expansion for BuzzFeed.
“We’re so thrilled to be working with Luis and Duolingo to power this international experiment.”
In addition to this army of free labourers BuzzFeed will also hire editors fluent in Spanish, French and Portugese to manage and create native content.
The Portugese site will launch on 18 October, Spanish on 21 October and French on 4 November.