NEW YORK: The Facebook has been reportedly in talks with The New York Times, National Geographic and BuzzFeed to host the content natively inside the Facebook.
In a scoop about itself this week, the New York Times reported the paper will give up some of its precious website traffic to the social-media giant, a move that some media observers call a power shift in the digital publishing landscape.
Under the proposed deal, Facebook would host content from prominent news outlets such as the Times, National Geographic and BuzzFeed directly inside the Facebook app.
BuzzFeed was among the major media outlets to have been approached by Facebook about a content distribution deal. BuzzFeed’s business model has focused on actively getting its content distributed outside its own website. The news outlets would get a cut of the ad revenue for their content. The social-media service, in turn, would get to keep its 1.4 billion users’ eyeballs from straying to third-party media sites whenever an interesting headline appears.
The business model presents a quandary, though, for publishers who want loyal customers but also realize that the media diets of today’s young adults are becoming more “promiscuous,” said Alfred Hermida, a digital media instructor at the University of British Columbia’s school of journalism.
“Facebook wants to find a way to become essentially the de facto internet for people. Facebook wants to be your world,” he said.
“The problem is, as a publisher, you’re essentially renting out office space in their building. And then you’re at the mercy of Facebook and how it organizes information on the site.”
At least half a dozen companies have been approached by Facebook about the content distribution scheme, the Times reported.
Many more outlets could be asked to join following testing of the project in the next few months.
‘There’s really no upside for traditional news media to publish directly to Facebook if Facebook isn’t going to share the data it collects about its users.’
– Josh Greenberg, director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication
As with the Times, those organizations “need [Facebook], and their readers, in order to stay in business,” says Richard Smith, director of Vancouver’s Centre for Digital Media.
“All kinds of companies are too reliant on Facebook. I suspect they know this, but they have no choice” but to get on board, Smith said.
Holdouts might otherwise risk being “punished by the algorithm” that might put a lower priority on posts linking out to their sites, said Josh Greenberg, director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication.
For late adopters, watching readership shrink while rivals enjoy the Facebook bump might be painful.
