Friends with benefits: Facebook and publishers
8 October 2015
We are seeing a proliferation of news distribution services on social media and technology platforms, as companies like Apple and Facebook look to capture the value of longform professional content.
Facebook’s Instant articles will likely be the most significant distribution mechanism for publishers, allowing Facebook to further position itself as a provider of quality, rather than just user-generated, content.
This is best seen as a trade: news providers’ engaging content for Facebook’s audience reach and data. While concerns about reliance on Facebook and content commoditisation are understandable, these are the inevitable results of user behaviour.