“INSTANT ARTICLES” is a new service announced by Facebook on May 12th, in partnership with nine news firms, including the New York Times, the Guardian and National Geographic. Facebook users will be able to read stories from these publishers without leaving the social network, since it will host the articles rather than just providing weblinks that send readers off to the news firms’ websites. In return, newspapers will be able to sell advertising that appears next to their stories and keep all the revenue, or let Facebook sell the ad space, and give it a 30% cut.
The nascent partnership highlights Facebook’s growing clout in the news business. Newspapers have become dependent on it to send readers to them, and tweaks to Facebook’s algorithm can dramatically change websites’ traffic. The New York Times gets around 15% of its traffic from Facebook; some news sites get over half. News firms have already cultivated legions of Facebook fans (see chart). Through the partnership publishers can reach new audiences, while Facebook will keep users...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1JKTbYm
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