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Facebook steps into publishing world

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 26 Mar 2015
Facebook plans to host news publishers' content on the social network.
Facebook plans to host news publishers' content on the social network.

Facebook plans to host news publishers' content inside the social network, rather than having a click-through to the external site, within the coming months.

This is according to a report by The New York Times (NYT) this week.

Facebook reportedly has been in talks with BuzzFeed, National Geographic and NYT, and these companies are expected to be the social media giant's initial partners.

The social network has reportedly discussed ways for publishers to make money from advertising, alongside the publishers' content.

"The data Facebook is able to collect on its own users and their behaviour across Facebook will be incredibly powerful as a media planning tool when combined with data from content consumption," says World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck.

"Access to such intelligence will be worth as much as advertising revenue to many publishers."

The move is a controversial one for publishers, which traditionally want to keep readers within their own ecosystems, where their own adverts are and where readers can click through to other content that is created by them, NYT notes.

If this model does work and is rolled out across all online publishing platforms, Goldstuck says it may well be a way out of the current mess many publishers face, of trying to monetise their content in an environment of low-cost advertising.

"It is unlikely to replace existing advertising models, but would rather be complementary. The moment Facebook tries to disintermediate the advertising model without giving the publishers a share of the action, they will run a mile."

Goldstruck says smaller or "desperate" publishers will, however, "be tempted to hand over the keys to their advertising kingdoms to Facebook. While that may generate revenues in the short term, it could kill off their brands in the longer term, as their content becomes subsumed in Facebook's brand."

Facebook was unable to comment at this stage.

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