It doesn't matter whether you think the dress is blue and black, or white and gold, because the BuzzFeed post that launched thousands of arguments—it's white and gold, by the way (editor's note: No, it's black and blue)—really serves as a viral promotion for the strength of BuzzFeed's native-advertising department.

The post, which you've most certainly seen by now, is not a native ad. It repurposes a Tumblr asking readers the color of a dress. And thanks to a trick of the eye, some people see blue and black; others see white and gold.

By midnight on Thursday, more than 10 million people had looked at it, according to a BuzzFeed spokeswoman. The post is now closing in on 26 million. At one point, the spokeswoman said, there were more than 670,000 readers on BuzzFeed at the same time—500,000 of them coming from mobile devices. Half of these visitors were reading the dress post. It became the top trending topic on Twitter in the U.S. and on Friday the morning TV shows wouldn't let it go.

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BuzzFeed makes all its money from creating lists and videos for advertisers that don't look like BuzzFeed's non-sponsored posts. It has an entire department of 70 people making this content, led by the newly minted, 20-something vice president, Melissa Rosenthal. Last year, the site generated more than $100 million in revenue from this strategy. BuzzFeed promises to promote the hell out of these posts on social media and offers a wink and nod that maybe, just maybe, the advertiser's article will go viral. Some have, though not nearly to the extent of the dress post.