You’ll likely spend 15 seconds or less skimming this article.But by uploading video, polls and a millennial flair for image GIFs, Israeli start-up Playbuzz claims it coaxes readers into staying on a webpage for two to four minutes on average, unheard of in the digital publishing industry.“If you only skip through and you maybe got the headline, you won’t share it [on social media],” said Yael Shafrir, Playbuzz’s vice president for international partnerships. “But if you really understood what we’re talking about, you’ve also voted your opinion on it, then you will tend to share it, and then we believe that it will create a better understanding of reality. Of course, this will also generate more revenue, and it generates a vision of a better world.”
As an Israeli start-up success story, the Tel Aviv-based digital storytelling platform raised some $35 million last month in a consortium led by Viola Growth fund and joined by Disney. A number of other Fortune 500 companies use Playbuzz’s platform, including news and video sites such as Netflix, Fox, NBC, ESPN, ABC and Huffington Post.Some 13,000 publishers and brands use Playbuzz’s platform, and the company garners more than one billion page views per month.Playbuzz, which shared a Digiday Award with the Huffington Post for their post-Brexit explanatory journalism, explains current events issue in an engaging and interactive way – such as by letting the viewer click on a graphic image of a terrorist attack or choosing to keep it hidden. In these ways, the company seduces users into spending more time hunched over their smartphones.Such persuasive power portends responsibility.Many of the company’s clients don’t necessarily offer hard news but rather, sports news, celebrity gossip and product advertising. Company executives demurred when asked if Playbuzz was contributing to an epidemic of smartphone addiction.“People are addicted to their screens anyhow,” Shafrir said.