Having avowed itself from publishers on the News Feed, a video-on demand service owned by the social media giant which hosts original content produced by the Facebook partners named it as ‘News’ section to Facebook watch. This is the additional feature to the news section. Facebook Watch’s news section will host breaking news stories sourced from media firms and publishing partners.
Facebook’s chief of news partnership in Campbell Brown at the Code Media Conference said ““We are creating a section in Watch just for news — a news destination”. Instead of reaching out to national news outlets, they will partner with local publishers to create a library of localized news, and will highlight the same for visitors by using a location-based algorithm in Facebook Watch, The Facebook executive Further revealed.
However, the addition of news section comes at the expense of News Feed, which will now feature fewer news stories compared to what it used to host earlier. 4% from 5% of overall content would go.
Earlier in 2016, The Company had created a video tab, but only hosted generic videos that were being shared by friends and family.
Competitors like YouTube and Snap also have their own original content, but with Watch — and the news focus — it’s taking a big step forward.
“People don’t come to Facebook for news, they come to Facebook for friends and family,” Brown said onstage. The friends and family are sharing the news feed
Especially. Regarding the controversy surrounding the spread of fake news via Facebook and how the new experiments bode financially for publishing partners.
Brown said, “If you’re a publisher who feels Facebook isn’t good for your business, you shouldn’t be on Facebook.
The executive also talked about Facebook’s upcoming subscription-based product, which is set to go live for publishers on March 1 this year.
Facebook is focusing on local news instead of international things.
Adam Mosseri, VP of news feed says “I don’t think our focus on false news and integrity morphed into time well spent. “After publishing came live, the latter will allow publishers to monetize their news content via a freemium model i.e. setting a limit on the number of free articles users can access through Facebook’s Instant Articles feature, and then creating a paywall for visitors who want full access to the entire news library.