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Facebook Wants to Skip the Off-Site Links, Host News Content Directly
The Wall Street Journal, in a report also cited by The Next Web and others, reports that Facebook is to soon begin acting not just as a conduit for news links pasted onto users' timelines (and leading to articles hosted elsewhere) but also as a host for the articles themselves. From the WSJ article: To woo publishers, Facebook is offering to change its traditional revenue-sharing model. In one of the models under consideration, publishers would keep all of the revenue from ads they sell on Facebook-hosted news sites, the people familiar with the matter said. If Facebook sells the advertisement, it would keep roughly 30% of the revenue, as it does in many other cases. Another motivation for Facebook to give up some revenue: It hopes the faster-loading content will encourage users to spend more time on its network.
It is unclear what format the ads might take, or if publishers will be able to place or measure the ads they sell within Facebook. It seems likely Facebook would want publishers to use its own advertising-technology products, such as Atlas and LiveRail, as opposed to those offered by rivals such as Google Inc.
Can we trust them with clear/unbiased coverage of news related to things like offshoring and H-1B quotas? Not that the mainstream media gets it right, but at least then we can find a diversity of coverage.
Websites are already hosted in Facebook's mobile browser. They've done this to speed up the performance on phones, as swapping apps takes time. They also get to then track which links you click on further, which is great for their targeted advertising.
This is the next logical step: move towards hosting the entire internet inside Facebook.
out of old VW beetles and surplus train track. But why would you?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Facebook is already make or break for news sites. Operations I've worked with get anywhere from 40-60+ percent of their traffic from Facebook. Facebook already has too much market power in this sector. News operations that go along with this idea are slitting their own throats.
Sorry to be harsh but it's true. Facebook disallows uploading of PDFs or document filetypes or animated GIFs for any sort of collaboration or group communication. There is absolutely no technological excuse for that. Twitter's limit needs to be upped to about 300 characters to say anything useful. 100% of their users agree. Unfortunately the higher ups can't seem to pull their heads out of their asses. Both FB and Twitter constantly try to stop users from linking to offsite content. How about allow it on your own website!!!
So now that's what they claim they're doing and yet I know they'll screw it up too badly to be useable. They'll stuff it full of ads, break 10 different countries' laws with it, Zuckerberg will say something offensive and blatant about it and piss off the board, and it will be inferior to even the garbage pile of a site design known as CNN.com. The real solution is to fire everyone who keeps making these horrible decisions about the way super massive sites are designed.
I wonder at what point they will move too far from their core mission and lose traction to some better service... and what will that new service look like?
My only question is if these new pages will have links to the super helpful articles on "New Law Passed In Your Area That People are Upset About" and "10 Celebrities Who Are Said To Smell Awful". I don't know how my life can be complete without thous ;-)
Given that they (Facebook) currently censor many posts, given that they continually force us to view "most popular" (by their arbitrary ranking) ... why should we trust their "news" ? ... would find another medium.
I wish those that use it
Cue the Monty Python skits, 'cause it's all about the spam spam spam spam spam.
Not the content. Not keeping articles current. Not making sure you can share links *outside* Facebook if you so choose.
But spam. Unending, unyielding, inflexible barrages of "advertising".
If they sent out leaflets instead of banner ads, my house would be ceiling deep in the shit, even with AdBlock Plus running.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I think it's relevant enough: http://theoatmeal.com/pl/state... ... and if I can't google or otherwise circumvent my way to the content, I'm perfectly fine to go without it.
Good riddance to bad websites.
Odds are not many working there have ever heard of AOL or an AOL CD at the checkout stand.
The irony is they are steadily working their way to being another AOL.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I think Microsoft is a better analogy.
Like Microsoft, Facebook is monopolistic to the point that every major business decision is made with the goal of expanding and cementing exclusive control. And like Microsoft, Facebook rarely 'sells' these decisions to its users. Rarely, it seems is the question of "Why would users want this?" placed at a higher priority than "How can we achieve absolute control?"
An interesting manifestation of their "power over popularity" focus is that both Microsoft (historically) and Facebook are notably design-challenged companies, with aesthetics that seem dated and "secondary" to their self-centered mission.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
This is a pretty good analogy, because Facebook is a walled garden, like AOL was in its heyday.
[ F*c*Buck == AhOLe ] The old one returns.
The computers we have are basically just terminals. The true data is at Facebook, Google, Twitter and there might be place for two others.
The guy who said that there is only a demand for 5 computerers was a visionary, not an idiot.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If Facebook keeps driving people away, maybe one day G+ will be more than an also-ran.
Facebook was making me hate people I thought I knew. G+ makes me hate people I don't know, yes, but it also makes me like people I don't know, so that's still infinitely superior to facebook.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But that would make you a douchebag.
You would build a roller coaster out of old VW beetles and surplus train track because that would be awesome.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is an attempt to render ad-blockers useless.
Bait: Free hosting on facebook, publishers keep all advertising revenue
Meanwhile: Off-site links become harder; vendor lock-in begins
Switch: Facebook dips into the publisher's advertising revenue.
Hm... it was called... wait... it will come to me...
Oh, yes.
America Online.
Facebook seems to want to be the Internet for everyone, much like AOL. We can but hope that it becomes irrelevant at least an order of magnitude faster than AOL itself has. You can all accelerate this process by ceasing your usage of Facebook immediately.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Facebook I mean
Korma: Good