Big business potential of messaging apps

New York

A TEAM at BuzzFeed, the news and entertainment site, knew it had struck gold when it came across a decades-old photo of Dwayne Johnson, the musclebound wrestler and film star known as The Rock, wearing a fanny pack and dated bluejeans.

To drum up more attention, the team changed the picture's background to a holiday theme and added "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree" in big lettering. But then, instead of posting the image to BuzzFeed, the team uploaded it to Instagram, the hugely popular photo-sharing service.

The image then took on a life of its own. Johnson quickly embraced the joke, reposting th…