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Facebook Wants to Skip the Off-Site Links, Host News Content Directly

Posted by timothy on from the a-few-seconds-a-few-seconds-there dept.

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.

4 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. H-1B News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Websites already hosted in Facebook's mobile by Bringer128 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. Yeah, let's give Facebook more power... by guevera · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Facebook is the new AOL by Gary+Perkins · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?