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BuzzFeed

Justin Bieber at snail's pace actually sounds good

Pre-teen girls think pop singer Justin Bieber is a musical sensation. The rest of the world basically considers him to be one chipmunk-cheeked, tow-headed Internet meme. The latest: somebody found that if you slow down Bieber's song "U Smile" to an eighth of its original speed, it sounds awfully trippy. And more than a little bit mesmerizing.

More specifically, the stretched-out song, clocking in at 35 minutes and 29 seconds, sounds like the ambient soundtrack to an edgy indie film set either in outer space or underwater and helmed by a director who's high on magic … Read more

Trend-tracking site BuzzFeed gets $3.5 million in funding

BuzzFeed, a start-up trend-tracking site, has received $3.5 million in its first round of funding, the company said Tuesday.

New York-based BuzzFeed tracks and delivers the content that is grabbing the most eyeballs on the Internet. Hearst Interactive Media and Softbank were among the group of investors.

Sure, the company sounds like another Digg clone. What's different about BuzzFeed is that it doesn't rely on votes to determine the popularity of a video, blog, or photo.

The company blends click tracking with its own algorithm and human editors to figure out which piece of content is about … Read more