Facebook, With a Focus on Mobile, Works on Project for News Via Users

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323998604578563853135203858-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMzEyNDMyWj.html

by scg • 13 years ago

15 19 13 years ago

online.wsj.com

uvdiv2• 13 years ago

In Soviet Russia, newspaper reads you!

(In Capitalist America, newspaper profitably sells many copies of you and goes on to a healthy IPO).

((In Strossian America, sentient uploaded newspapers rove the clouds. They hunt in packs)).

joelrunyon• 13 years ago

"The opportunity to own the place where people go for long-form reading is a very large opportunity, especially for advertising," said Josh Elman

Is this an admittance that their current advertising offerings don't generate as much revenue as desired?

uvdiv2• 13 years ago

The quoted Josh Elman does not work for Facebook.

Irishsteve• 13 years ago

Great another news aggregator and recommendation service(!).

To be fair their interest lists are really cool https://www.facebook.com/lists/10150896044944655

Sadly all the ad's make it a painful experience. I'm sure they are just going to clean things like that up and make it more usable.

jbverschoor• 13 years ago

Great.. time to create the next best thing.

smegel• 13 years ago

For some value of "news"

mtgx• 13 years ago

So the mission has gone from being a social network to being a newspaper? This shows that Facebook doesn't care about what users want from Facebook anymore, but about what's going to make Facebook the most money.

This is exactly what I expected to happen after the IPO because their revenue/profit still doesn't justify their valuation, which means they need to focus a lot more on monetization and do it soon, before most investors wake up to it. This hurry to monetize means they'll screw a lot of things up for the users, and possibly even ruin Facebook for them.

danmaz742• 13 years ago

All their recent moves point to this explanation, as with hashtags: http://danmaz74.me/2013/05/16/facebook-hashtags-when-monetiz...

flyinRyan• 13 years ago

This shows that Facebook doesn't care about what users want from Facebook anymore, but about what's going to make Facebook the most money.

What? When has this ever not been the case? Have you actually used facebook from the (near) beginning? Because it's never been about anything but what makes the most money. Zuck and co have screwed everyone to cater to advertisers since they first opened to the non-university internet (and I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was going on even before that).

Shish2k• 13 years ago

By "best personalized newspaper" I guess they mean "most external-sound-proof echo chamber", since that's the lines they've been going along so far?

I'd really like a website where you can tell it your opinions and it finds intelligently written, interesting to read counter-arguments; though I can't see such a service succeeding in a world where "changing your mind when presented with new facts" is considered a sign of weakness :(

mike_esspe• 13 years ago

You can try this subreddit for getting counter-arguments:

http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview

benguild• 13 years ago

This space has become fragmented enough that I'm actually quite curious to see what Facebook's take on it is. However, personally, I don't want to tie-up any more of my data in that platform, though.

kmfrk2• 13 years ago

I'm so tired of seeing these numbskulls from Silicon Valley trivialize what it means for something to be a "newspaper", as if it's just some "content organization" to aggregate.

I see the same thing with Medium. Beyond frustrating.

pizza234• 13 years ago

Well, the vast majority of news media (including newspapers) are trivializing the concept as well, for a few reasons, so the S.V. people are doing nothing really different. For example it's generally horrific, for a person with a scientific background, to read the "scientific" section of the mainstream newspapers.

"News media" with a certain depth, which you are likely referring to, are only a niche.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

> "For example it's generally horrific, for a person with a scientific background, to read the "scientific" section of the mainstream newspapers"

Because it's a mainstream newspaper. That section is made so that ordinary people can understand the content and get value from it. Specialist magazines etc. go into the detail someone with prior knowledge in the subject would need.

'Good' newspapers go into subjects in detail, providing the most important information, but also make it understandable to everyone.

talhof8• 13 years ago

Facebook is no longer the social network it used to be. It creates too much features, too much products in order to please its investors and shareholders. Facebook is trying to compete with too much companies from various other categories and I don't think is doing a very good job

danmaz742• 13 years ago

Completely agree. I don't want FB to be a newspaper - for that I read newspapers. I want FB to connect to friends and family.

kmfrk2• 13 years ago

It hasn't been a social network in a while; it's been - at least an attempt at - a platform for a while.

I guess we're used to thinking of it like that, because Twitter still hasn't branched out too much yet - although time will tell what comes of Vine and #music, if anything.

Mordor• 13 years ago

WSJ must be quaking in their boots lol

Facebook, With a Focus on Mobile, Works on Project for News Via Users

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