Bidness ETC - Facebook Plans To Shift 'Instant Articles' Option On The Website

The social media company has decided to bring the Instant Article feature to the website now to make it more popular and known

The new feature that Facebook has reportedly been carrying out on its app known as the ‘Instant Article’ is now being updated by the social media company, as per the reports by Wall Street Journal. Previously, this feature was only made available on the FB app for smartphones carrying the iOS. However, the media firm has now decided to bring this feature to the website too now, in order to increase the number of articles that are being published on it every day. In the start, there were only a few publishing houses which helped the firm activate this feature in the first place. But after a little time only, the content to be published decreased and publishing eventually stopped.

Facebook, on the other hand, is in no plan to stop or discontinue the newly established feature and for that purpose, it has reportedly been looking for content that it can start releasing through the Instant Article feature, news confirmed by the WSJ. On the other hand, there are some names in the industry that have agreed to publish their content directly on the networking giant’s site through the article feature. One of them is none other than New York Times which, according to reports, is planning to shift the same feature now on the desktop website which will not only make this more active but it will also help the users on the desktops to view the daily articles being released on the web.

Along with the New York Times, The Atlantic has also shown interest in taking part in Facebook’s new venture and has decided to submit some of its content on the instant articles for an indefinite period of time. As per news released by the Wall Street journalists, it has also been informed that NBC has also agreed to work with the social media platform to speed up the new feature on the website. However, this collaboration has not yet been confirmed by the networking giant and according to the report, NBC is still waiting to receive an approval for around 30 articles that it plans to publish daily through Instant Articles.

Currently, there are other publishing houses as well who wish to release their content directly on the media company’s site but Facebook has emerged to show some restrictions on signing up with a lot of houses at the moment and plans to restrict itself to see whether the new feature is showing any success by the current number of articles being published on it. If things turn out the way the media firm has planned them out, then it is expected to appoint more published to release content through the new feature.

Bidness ETC - Facebook Introduces "Add A Link"

Facebook curbs the need of Google by launching "Add A Link"

There are several problems which users undergo while using mobile applications. Among them is posting of links which get extremely clumsy where users have to switch app, copy and paste etc. So in order to solve this problem, Facebook Inc (FB) has taken an initiative where it has been testing a keyword search engine that will be in-app allowing users to find articles and websites so that they can add them to these status updates.

Along with the options to update location or pictures, some Apple iOS users have been given the option to “Add A Link”. So if users have any query, they can easily mention there and FB, the social media giant will provide several links that the user might be interested in sharing. This allows users to see what is on the sites and by tapping on them they can also add a caption before sharing it. The company will also provide a list of preferences based on the links that have been shared mostly.

This is a major advancement by the company to curb Google. Initially, if a user needed to search for any link or article, they had to switch to Google’s app via mobile and copy and paste the link on their preferred social media platform. So in one way, Social Media Platforms were contributing positively to the usage of Google.

However now, there would not be much need of Google Inc at least on Facebook since the website will perform the duties of a search engine which is expected to be less cluttered and more sophisticated.

This will be a major breakthrough for Facebook since now it will have the audience hooked to itself. Most of the users, including me found the process to copy paste links extremely monotonous and time-consuming. So if now Facebook will put an end to this misery, then users will naturally prefer to stay on the platform rather than opting for search engines.

Tech Crunch reports that the “program could launch soon, and Facebook might give publishers 100% of ad revenue if they sell what’s shown next to the articles. If Facebook sells the ads, it might get 30%”

Usually what happens is that users tend to put an end to their windows session when they want to switch tab and search. So this initiative by the company will give them reasons to stay back and have their needs catered through this platform on its own without the need of other browsers or search engine.