views
New Delhi: Given the recent findings that almost an equal number of people are consuming news via Facebook as they do through other medium, it seems that the social networking giant is aiming to capitalize on this.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to be in talks with news sites like The New York Times and others like the National Geographic to directly host their content on the social network, The Wall Street Journal said in its report.
Hosting stories directly and not just links to the external sites will help cut down on the page load time for users- a way to hold their interest for longer on the news feed.
According to a Cnet report, in return, Facebook is offering to let these third-party publishers keep all the revenue for some of the ads associated with their content. If Facebook sold the ads, it would keep 30 per cent of the revenue.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, said that the feature, dubbed Instant Articles, is still being finalized and that some publishers remain "wary of tethering themselves more tightly" to the social network.
It is speculated that the new feature could be rolled out as early as this month, but it is still unclear what control publishers would have over the experience.
Currently, the third-party links posted on Facebook lead you to the host site, adding additional time to the page-load and also in a way, shifting the user engagement onto the other site. With the new feature, all the content would load more or less immediately, keeping users engaged on Facebook's site.
Comments
0 comment