News publishers will find Facebook's bear hug hard to resist
Financial Times 27 February 2015
"Facebook wants to do more than just point its users to articles on other company's websites - it wants to host the content."
"By the end of last year, about a quarter of all the traffic being referred around the internet came from Facebook, according to Shareaholic, a company that measures the sources of traffic."
Facebook wants to be the new web. Or certainly the new Google.
Will media companies agree to have their content hosted by Facebook so it can be delivered faster to users and succeed in FB's algorithms? Mark Thompson (Chief Executive, New York Times, ex-Director General, BBC) says "in principle he was in favour of engaging with any new digital platform." Diplomatic and non-committal.
There's a balance here: media companies have the interesting content that people want to read; Facebook has the audience media companies want to capture. Some negotiation can be sought without capitulating to what feels like FB bullying.
A clear indicator that the web is evolving under the influences of corporate control, and losing its democratic foundations.
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