4 ms·

Sharecropping is a better metaphor. Facebook owns the audience (land), but they don't yet have the ability to fully satisfy (farm) that audience. So they direc

Sharecropping is a better metaphor. Facebook owns the audience (land), but they don't yet have the ability to fully satisfy (farm) that audience. So they direct traffic out to publishers who provide content to fulfill that demand. Like sharecropping, they split the revenue. Of course, there's a reason that sharecropping has a bad name: all the power is held by the owner (Facebook). They can, and probably will, shift to a model of owning the content directly. In 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if most publishers were dead, replaced by Facebook directly paying creators. (We can already see this in television, with Netflix directly producing their own content.)

neuromancer2701 11y ago
Slightly different but similar, Comcast buying NBC and Verizon buying AOL.
itchyouch 11y ago
I think this is unlikely as facebook generating media for consumption isn't part of their core competency. It's meant more to be a platform for connecting users together. More compellingly, content generation could be owned by facebook if there was a limited set of content to generate. Farms produce some limited subset of crops (e.g. corn, rice). Netflix produces a limited set of tv shows. Netflix with only the shows that netflix creates wouldn't be as compelling without access to the other large corpus of shows. The same would be for FB. While it could be argued that FB could generate its own content, like Apple/Google apps on the app stores + other apps, I doubt that the cost/benefit of FB becoming their own content producing shop will ever be compelling enough to kick out the existing media companies.
- morgante 11y ago
  You're right that Facebook will probably never completely kick out existing media companies. It'll probably follow the Netflix model more closely: building specific pieces of content which it thinks are desirable for the platform and as a competitive edge against others. One example: I envision Facebook expanding its "trending stories" feature to include a full-length in-house article about trending news.
  - riskneural 11y ago
    Would you believe for a moment news published directly by facebook? What about the risk that they simply used your data as news? What about yesterday's fiasco, in which they digitally enabled support for fashionable Paris in geographic regions which have their own ignored tragedies?
    - ethbro 11y ago
      I think this can be summarized into a cleaner formulation: by controlling the last mile, Facebook obtains the ability (though not the requirement) to absorb whatever components of the experience they choose. This has always been one of Microsoft and Apple's biggest strengths (though executed with varying degrees of competency at various times for both of them). Facebook isn't going to replace all existing publishers, but it very well might become a publisher for a few very profitable sub-niches / types of content. Or more likely (again, a la Microsoft and Apple) simply buy quality publishers in those niches. Because quality, but under-supported publisher + first-party FB analytics, advertising ability, & platform control = a pretty winning play.
      - tracker1 11y ago
        Something like Huffington Post owned by FB would be pretty powerful, and fit well within FB as an org and platform... The integration could be very clean given their understanding of your interests... there's already promoted articles, and other similar articles when you comment on something... adding in more FB control and integration could very well be a next step for them.
    - morgante 11y ago
      > Would you believe for a moment news published directly by facebook? Yes, just as much as I believe other outlets. All those same criticisms apply equally to other news sources. In fact, at least Facebook would use data to drive their stories.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
braythwayt 11y ago
> Sharecropping is a better metaphor. Yes. This is the metaphor I use for describing building applications within a walled garden (like iOS): You don't have users, Apple has users, you have a portion of Apple's "real estate" that you can monetize while turning over 30%, and if Apple thinks somebody else can do a better job of monetizing that real estate (including themselves), then (effectively) out you go. This is exactly what the publishers are doing: They are creating content for Facebook's users, not for their own users. They are not building an audience that happens to use Facebook to connect to their content, it's that Facebook has an audience that happens to read the publisher's content. It's Facebook's land, and the publishers till Facebook's fields at Facebook's pleasure. > In 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if most publishers were dead, replaced by Facebook directly paying creators. This works for YouTube. If you can generate millions of views, you can get a share of the advertising revenue.
Kinnard 11y ago
Zapchain is already doing this: http://zapchain.com http://zapchain.com

neuromancer2701 11y ago

Slightly different but similar, Comcast buying NBC and Verizon buying AOL.

itchyouch 11y ago

I think this is unlikely as facebook generating media for consumption isn't part of their core competency. It's meant more to be a platform for connecting users together. More compellingly, content generation could be owned by facebook if there was a limited set of content to generate. Farms produce some limited subset of crops (e.g. corn, rice). Netflix produces a limited set of tv shows. Netflix with only the shows that netflix creates wouldn't be as compelling without access to the other large corpus of shows. The same would be for FB. While it could be argued that FB could generate its own content, like Apple/Google apps on the app stores + other apps, I doubt that the cost/benefit of FB becoming their own content producing shop will ever be compelling enough to kick out the existing media companies.

morgante 11y ago
You're right that Facebook will probably never completely kick out existing media companies. It'll probably follow the Netflix model more closely: building specific pieces of content which it thinks are desirable for the platform and as a competitive edge against others. One example: I envision Facebook expanding its "trending stories" feature to include a full-length in-house article about trending news.
- riskneural 11y ago
  Would you believe for a moment news published directly by facebook? What about the risk that they simply used your data as news? What about yesterday's fiasco, in which they digitally enabled support for fashionable Paris in geographic regions which have their own ignored tragedies?
  - ethbro 11y ago
    I think this can be summarized into a cleaner formulation: by controlling the last mile, Facebook obtains the ability (though not the requirement) to absorb whatever components of the experience they choose. This has always been one of Microsoft and Apple's biggest strengths (though executed with varying degrees of competency at various times for both of them). Facebook isn't going to replace all existing publishers, but it very well might become a publisher for a few very profitable sub-niches / types of content. Or more likely (again, a la Microsoft and Apple) simply buy quality publishers in those niches. Because quality, but under-supported publisher + first-party FB analytics, advertising ability, & platform control = a pretty winning play.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      Something like Huffington Post owned by FB would be pretty powerful, and fit well within FB as an org and platform... The integration could be very clean given their understanding of your interests... there's already promoted articles, and other similar articles when you comment on something... adding in more FB control and integration could very well be a next step for them.
  - morgante 11y ago
    > Would you believe for a moment news published directly by facebook? Yes, just as much as I believe other outlets. All those same criticisms apply equally to other news sources. In fact, at least Facebook would use data to drive their stories.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

braythwayt 11y ago

> Sharecropping is a better metaphor. Yes. This is the metaphor I use for describing building applications within a walled garden (like iOS): You don't have users, Apple has users, you have a portion of Apple's "real estate" that you can monetize while turning over 30%, and if Apple thinks somebody else can do a better job of monetizing that real estate (including themselves), then (effectively) out you go. This is exactly what the publishers are doing: They are creating content for Facebook's users, not for their own users. They are not building an audience that happens to use Facebook to connect to their content, it's that Facebook has an audience that happens to read the publisher's content. It's Facebook's land, and the publishers till Facebook's fields at Facebook's pleasure. > In 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if most publishers were dead, replaced by Facebook directly paying creators. This works for YouTube. If you can generate millions of views, you can get a share of the advertising revenue.

Kinnard 11y ago

Zapchain is already doing this: http://zapchain.com http://zapchain.com