MEDIA

This Quiz Will Reveal If BuzzFeed Is Buying You

Is your company named HuffPost? If so, then yes. 

Yesterday, splashy news site BuzzFeed acquired splashy news site HuffPost in a stock deal. But the purchase is less like picking up your morning latte and more like striking an ongoing arrangement with the barista. 

• HuffPost owner Verizon Media will reportedly make a cash investment in BuzzFeed, plus nab a minority stake that values BuzzFeed at a reported $1.7 billion. 
• The two digital media brands will syndicate content and join forces in pursuing ad dollars. 

Add this to the list of accelerating trends 

The trend here being consolidation in digital media. In the 2000s, brands like BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post (HuffPost's initial name) attracted eyeballs aplenty—and with them, ad dollars. But in the past decade, tech giants have been siphoning off a growing chunk of that revenue. 

• Facebook and Google accounted for over half of U.S. digital ad spending last year, per eMarketer.  
• Amazon has also dipped its baguette into the digital ad fondue pot, slurping up another ~10% of the U.S. market. 

That leaves upstarts competing for what's left...and merging with each other to stay alive. 

• Last year alone, Vox Media acquired New York Magazine's parent company, Vice Media acquired Refinery29, and Group Nine bought PopSugar. 

HuffPost owner Verizon Media has struggled to keep up 

In 2018, it wrote down $4.5 billion on Oath, its ill-fated attempt to combine AOL and Yahoo and adapt the early internet stars for the modern internet era. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has experimented with various strategies to diversify revenue, including affiliate partnerships and e-commerce. 

• One example of that: BuzzFeed is launching a branded sex toy ahead of a new Sex and Love vertical, slated to arrive in Q1 of next year. 

Zoom out: BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti is coming home, the WSJ writes. He cofounded The Huffington Post with Kenneth Lerer, Andrew Breitbart, and Arianna Huffington in 2005. And he’s not done shopping. BuzzFeed reportedly plans to keep buying media and commerce companies. 

ECONOMY

Job Market Looking Shaky

Last week, applications for first-time unemployment benefits rose to 742,000, the first increase since early October. Some more concerning numbers about the labor market: 

• 20.3 million: U.S. workers receiving unemployment benefits at the end of October
• 10 million: jobs the economy has lost since the pandemic started
• 35: consecutive weeks that initial jobless claims have been worse than at the peak of the Great Recession

The context: New daily coronavirus infections have ballooned 80% the last two weeks, and states and cities are reimposing restrictions. 

Looking ahead...Congress missed the sentiment behind Boxing Day. On Dec. 26, two CARES Act programs that offer additional federal unemployment benefits will expire:

• One expands eligibility to contract workers and the self-employed for the first time. 
• The other provides an additional 13 weeks of federal benefits after state ones run out.

If these programs are allowed to expire, 12 million workers will go from receiving an average of $320 benefits/week to nothing, the Century Foundation estimates. Without that money, many could struggle to pay rent, buy food, and keep up with other necessities. 

AUTO

Us Trying to Keep Up With Electric Vehicle News

Highlights from a busy week in the electric vehicle (EV) market:

Feeling confident about a potential breakthrough in its electric battery tech, GM is upping planned investments in EVs and self-driving cars to $27 billion over the next five years and bringing 30 EVs to market instead of 20.  

The U.K. is moving a ban on sales of diesel and gas vehicles up to 2030 and investing $1.7 billion in charging infrastructure, PM Boris Johnson announced Tuesday.  

• The news propelled EV stocks, sending Tesla up 4.5% to a record high of $508.61. 

SPACs are back. Arrival, a commercial van and bus maker, is going public on the Nasdaq by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that belongs to the former CEO of Marvel Comics. The deal values the British EV startup at $5.4 billion. And Michigan's Electric Last Mile Solutions is reportedly in talks to merge with Forum, another SPAC. 

Finally, shares rose for Chinese EV makers Nio, Xpeng Motors, and Li Auto after they posted Q3 earnings this week. Nio recently became the seventh-largest automaker by market cap.

SPONSORED BY THE RIDGE

A Beautiful (Not Booty-ful) Black Friday

When it comes to receiving wallets, we want one that is functional, yet stylish. A wallet with beauty, not booty (re: one that doesn’t give us a bulky behind). In other words, only a wallet created by The Ridge will do. 

You may have already heard about their minimalist, RFID-blocking, anti-butt-bulge wallets that use elastic to expand to hold up to 12 IDs and credit cards (pretty fancy). 

But besides creating the sleekest, most efficient wallet you’ve ever slid into your back (or front) pocket, The Ridge also has a line of other essentials—like backpacks, keychains, and multi-use door openers—all made to last and backed by a quality guarantee.

Which is great news considering the holidays are around the corner, and The Ridge has the perfect selection of gifts to officially secure your place as the Holiday Hero this year. 

Brew readers get an exclusive start on the savings plus 15% off your purchase with code EARLYACCESS. 

HOUSING

Closing Time

The number of Americans playing real-life Sims is about to crash the country's servers. Existing U.S. home sales rose 4.3% in October, the fifth straight month of growth and the highest level in almost 15 years. 

A combo of factors is driving the housing boom:

• Homes are the new offices, considering at least 21% of the labor force is working from home because of the pandemic.
• With the Fed dropping interest rates, financing your home purchase has never been cheaper; the average rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to a record 2.72% last week. 

The downside? Inventory is tight, so prices are shooting up. The median price of an existing home last month was $313,000, 15% higher than a year ago.

Big picture: The urge to buy a house is so strong that "Zillow surfing" (when you fantasize about houses listed on Zillow) has become a popular pandemic pastime, the NYT reports.

QUIZ

The Quiz Gambit

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to receiving a compliment on your carefully curated bookshelf.

It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Roblox, a social gaming platform favored by younger users, filed to go public yesterday and reported a 91% annual increase in Q3 revenue.
• Macy's reported a 20% drop in same-store sales last quarter, and it's nervous about what rising Covid-19 cases mean for the crucial holiday shopping season.
• Tyson Foods hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate allegations that managers at a pork plant in Iowa took bets on the number of workers who would become infected with the coronavirus. 
• Facebook said it removed 265,000 pieces of content for violating its policies on election interference.
• China issued debt at a negative interest rate for the first time.
• Very Brexit: High-level talks about Britain's exit from the EU were stopped when a top negotiator tested positive for the coronavirus.

BREW'S BETS

Now this is a healthy sale. Sakara only has one sale a year, and it’s now. Everything on site is 25% off, including their best-selling Metabolism Super Powder that has over 500 5-star reviews. Get 25% off everything here.*

Hit pay dirt. With Good Earth Organics, you can get in on the literal dirt floor of the cannabis and hemp industry that’s projected to reach nearly $52 billion by 2025. Invest in the finest dirt here.*

Virtual Thanksgiving: Zoom has removed its 40-minute time limit for the holiday so family small talk can last as long as you want. 

Follow Friday: Embrace your inner raccoon by scrolling street furniture on so-called "stooping" accounts, inspired by Stooping NYC. Try searching for stooping + your city on Instagram, or follow Stooping LA, Stooping Belgium, Stooping Philly, and Stooping Amsterdam to see trash-treasure from around the world.

^{*This is sponsored advertising content}

FROM THE CREW

In the buzziest collab since McDonald’s and Travis Scott, Emerging Tech Brew and Retail Brew teamed up to explore one of the most important business stories of 2020: e-commerce. 

This four-part guide follows a quarantine sweatsuit from the moment a shopper sees it on Instagram to the second it arrives on their doorstep. As you follow the journey, you’ll learn a ton about how hidden technologies have transformed the way we shop—from product discovery on social media to warehouse order fulfillment.

We found it fascinating, and think you will too. Dive in here. 

GAMES

Friday Puzzle

Place a three-letter word in the dashes to complete a word on the left and begin another word on the right.

Example: e a r _ _ _ m e = THY, because earthy and thyme. 

1. f e a t _ _ _ o i c 
2. c o u r _ _ _ n d a
3. d i s p _ _ _ o v e r
4. k e e _ _ _ s i s t 
5. r u n _ _ _ i c e 

ANSWER

1. featHER / HERoic
2. courAGE / AGEnda
3. dispLAY / LAYover
4. keePER / PERsist
5. runOFF / OFFice