6 ms·

The money quote: > "Facebook is the destroyer of worlds."

_rpd 9y ago
It seems to me that this is the money quote: > The prioritization of friends/family content over publishers was the last straw.
- Daniel_sk 9y ago
  Actually they took to extremes in some countries, there is an ongoing (e.g. already months) newsfeed experiment in Slovakia and some other countries where essentially ZERO content from pages is shown, not even the ones I am following and I would like to actually see the new content. I have to switch the "Explorer" (Explore) button in the left menu to see content from Pages.
  - _rpd 9y ago
    Perhaps publisher traffic will recover once people become used to clicking the button to see non-friends and family content?
    - eli 9y ago
      I've heard more than one publisher say an increase in traffic from Google AMP is making up for most of the decline in traffic from Facebook
  - dwighttk 9y ago
    Isn't this what Snapchat is doing?
burntwater 9y ago
Worlds that perhaps would never have existed without Facebook.
- cheald 9y ago
  That world existed pre-Facebook, but speaking as someone formerly in media, Facebook has become a very worthy successor to Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy. Media used to live and die on search engine traffic. SEO was king, getting ranked in searches was how you thrived. Once Facebook (and to a much smaller extent, Twitter) showed up, it became about the all-important share. Facebook worked very hard to make sure that people consumed a vast majority of their news and media diet through Facebook itself, and consumption patterns heavily changed as a result. Facebook became the 9000lb gorilla driving your traffic, and the extent to which you lived and died depended on how much money you were willing to put towards paid promotion of your content. They even built out ecosystems like Facebook Instant Articles, which move content off the publisher's platform and directly into Facebook. With the newsfeed algorithm changes, media companies are left with an audience that doesn't use search and can't get contact with their articles via the channel they previously used to. Traffic is just gone, and it's going to kill a lot of already-struggling publishers as a result.
  - burntwater 9y ago
    I have no real evidence to back this, but I think that many of these publishers simply would never have existed/gained traction without Facebook. Facebook made it (comparatively) very, very easy to get eyes on their articles, especially time-wasting "fluff" articles as opposed to articles that would have been search driven because of their search-worthy content.
    - CharlesW 9y ago
      > …I think that many of these publishers simply would never have existed/gained traction without Facebook. Facebook made it (comparatively) very, very easy to get eyes on their articles… This is a good point that may not be universally understood. Just as Facebook can suppress certain content when it's useful for them, they also artificially "boost" content when it's useful for them. For example, when Facebook Live was introduced you could get very high "reach" numbers (compared to your "normal" reach) simply by using this new feature that Facebook wanted to promote.

_rpd 9y ago

It seems to me that this is the money quote: > The prioritization of friends/family content over publishers was the last straw.

Daniel_sk 9y ago
Actually they took to extremes in some countries, there is an ongoing (e.g. already months) newsfeed experiment in Slovakia and some other countries where essentially ZERO content from pages is shown, not even the ones I am following and I would like to actually see the new content. I have to switch the "Explorer" (Explore) button in the left menu to see content from Pages.
- _rpd 9y ago
  Perhaps publisher traffic will recover once people become used to clicking the button to see non-friends and family content?
  - eli 9y ago
    I've heard more than one publisher say an increase in traffic from Google AMP is making up for most of the decline in traffic from Facebook
- dwighttk 9y ago
  Isn't this what Snapchat is doing?

burntwater 9y ago

Worlds that perhaps would never have existed without Facebook.

cheald 9y ago
That world existed pre-Facebook, but speaking as someone formerly in media, Facebook has become a very worthy successor to Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy. Media used to live and die on search engine traffic. SEO was king, getting ranked in searches was how you thrived. Once Facebook (and to a much smaller extent, Twitter) showed up, it became about the all-important share. Facebook worked very hard to make sure that people consumed a vast majority of their news and media diet through Facebook itself, and consumption patterns heavily changed as a result. Facebook became the 9000lb gorilla driving your traffic, and the extent to which you lived and died depended on how much money you were willing to put towards paid promotion of your content. They even built out ecosystems like Facebook Instant Articles, which move content off the publisher's platform and directly into Facebook. With the newsfeed algorithm changes, media companies are left with an audience that doesn't use search and can't get contact with their articles via the channel they previously used to. Traffic is just gone, and it's going to kill a lot of already-struggling publishers as a result.
- burntwater 9y ago
  I have no real evidence to back this, but I think that many of these publishers simply would never have existed/gained traction without Facebook. Facebook made it (comparatively) very, very easy to get eyes on their articles, especially time-wasting "fluff" articles as opposed to articles that would have been search driven because of their search-worthy content.
  - CharlesW 9y ago
    > …I think that many of these publishers simply would never have existed/gained traction without Facebook. Facebook made it (comparatively) very, very easy to get eyes on their articles… This is a good point that may not be universally understood. Just as Facebook can suppress certain content when it's useful for them, they also artificially "boost" content when it's useful for them. For example, when Facebook Live was introduced you could get very high "reach" numbers (compared to your "normal" reach) simply by using this new feature that Facebook wanted to promote.