Facebook Starts Hosting “Instant Articles”(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Facebook Starts Hosting “Instant Articles”
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/12/facebook-instant-articles/
13 comments
Sadly, this looks like one more step in the walled garden web direction, somewhat like AOL sites back in the day. I am amazed publishers are apparently going along with this. They must be very desperate for views if they are willing to relinquish this much control.
I for one am hoping that this catches on, walled garden or not I'd rather spend my time reading content on an interface that I don't have to fight against (e.g. full screen overlay ads with a tiny x to close) and I trust facebook to build that better than anyone else.
I'm also surprised publishers are going along with it though, it seems a little ironic. The only reason this product is interesting is because so many mobile articles today have horrible UIs. Native views will probably be nicer anyway but publishers could mostly fix this right now if they were willing to give up my accidental ad clicks. But instead they need someone like facebook to save them from themselves in order to make their content consumable again.
I'm also surprised publishers are going along with it though, it seems a little ironic. The only reason this product is interesting is because so many mobile articles today have horrible UIs. Native views will probably be nicer anyway but publishers could mostly fix this right now if they were willing to give up my accidental ad clicks. But instead they need someone like facebook to save them from themselves in order to make their content consumable again.
> I'd rather spend my time reading content on an interface that I don't have to fight against (e.g. full screen overlay ads with a tiny x to close)
RSS readers solved this problem a long time ago.
RSS readers solved this problem a long time ago.
As far as I can tell the hegemony of Google Reader kind of stunted the growth of everything else.
I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. The rise of RSS in the mid 2000's gave way to all sorts of plugins to inject ads into your RSS feeds as a way to cope with the lost web traffic
RSS didn't solve the adoption problem, nor the "it just works" problem.
AdBlockPlus / uBlock Origin user here - I haven't seen an overlay ad (or for that matter, a non-overlay ad) in years now.
And, no, I don't feel guilty - I might have felt guilty if I only paid for ads with my attention (I'm not sure though - I don't feel guilty ignoring the ads on a print newspaper). But allowing ads through means you give 20 or so organizations with questionable ethics complete info about your web use, including (but not limited) to when and what -- and those 20 organizations sell that info to the highest bidder. No, I don't feel guilty at all.
And, no, I don't feel guilty - I might have felt guilty if I only paid for ads with my attention (I'm not sure though - I don't feel guilty ignoring the ads on a print newspaper). But allowing ads through means you give 20 or so organizations with questionable ethics complete info about your web use, including (but not limited) to when and what -- and those 20 organizations sell that info to the highest bidder. No, I don't feel guilty at all.
Overlays often have ask users to like some page on facebook, or to subscribe to some mailing list, it's not advertising. But you need to make a click to close it.
uBlock and AdBlockPlus make them go away, at least on website I frequent.
And facebook is one of those questionable ethics organizations I mentioned. The mere existence of a "Like" button (whether you click it or not) in 99.99% of the cases already gives facebook all the info about your surfing habits.
And facebook is one of those questionable ethics organizations I mentioned. The mere existence of a "Like" button (whether you click it or not) in 99.99% of the cases already gives facebook all the info about your surfing habits.
By the way, there is an extension that removes overlays on any website and doesn't require any permissions, Behind The Overlay => https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/l...
It's activated by clicking the icon or by using a keyboard shortcut (cmd+shit+x). So there is at least one single way to close any overlay on any website.
It's activated by clicking the icon or by using a keyboard shortcut (cmd+shit+x). So there is at least one single way to close any overlay on any website.
Also, I've seen a few things recently talking about how as it continues to get easier engineering-wise to build consumer sites/apps quickly and scale them to big audiences, design becomes an even more important differentiator. This facebook launch is an interesting counter example to that idea in that they'll own much of the design and UI.
"Design as differentiator" is the problem. There is an optimal way to design for readability, and all that "differentiation" usually does is making things worse and worse, because "we have to be different!".
I think they're more desperate for advertising revenue than "views".
How is this different than distribution of printed magazines, for example? Publishers produce their product and ship it to distribution centers. You can buy the magazines at the bus stop, or at the gas station, or even have it mailed to you.
You can find the article on facebook, or when you searched bing, or maybe even subscribe to their newsletter, get mobile notification from their mobile app on your phone.
And how is this publishers relinquishing their control? They will post on facebook no matter what. Integration with the platfrom gives them more data and another possible monetization stream with more perks on the way, I'm sure. What are they losing from this integration?
You can find the article on facebook, or when you searched bing, or maybe even subscribe to their newsletter, get mobile notification from their mobile app on your phone.
And how is this publishers relinquishing their control? They will post on facebook no matter what. Integration with the platfrom gives them more data and another possible monetization stream with more perks on the way, I'm sure. What are they losing from this integration?
Imagine if they sent their articles to the supermarket and the supermarket decided how to lay it out and what ads to run. And perhaps also interspersed your articles with articles from other sources you did not vet ahead of time.
Of course they're desperate for views. Their whole business model is based on views. Which is why the media is of such awful quality today.
Absolutely. I feel that news "content" is now all very clickbaity which is a huge turnoff. I've had to stop following a lot of trusted media because they're trending towards clickbait. Ever since the WaPo got bought by Bezos and pals a lot of their content has trended that way. It's sad but I guess I understand that that's what they need to do to survive.
This seems rather pointless given HTLM5 ServiceWorkers. All of the benefits they're claiming with respect to local prefetching content for offline, instant use can be done with that spec. Even push-message content updates when the mobile browser isn't even running can be achieved. The only missing component is IOS support which might be possible to polyfill in via a hybrid.
I'm pretty sure Facebook knows about this, it seems like a platform lockin play.
I'm pretty sure Facebook knows about this, it seems like a platform lockin play.
Absolutely nobody is avoiding reading articles because they take too long to load but they have to have some sort of positive way of describing it.
Some people may be on mobile devices, but obviously it isn't the articles that is taking to long to load. It is the layers and layers of blocking JavaScript used for tracking and serving up ads that are taking forever to load.
I think Slate is the most egregious offender there.
What? In my experience this has always been true on mobile. If something takes longer than a few seconds to load it gets closed or restarted.
How many news articles take longer than a few seconds to load?
Through Facebook's in-app browser? Most. And you must at least start the load in the in-app browser to get the option to open it in the device's native browser.
Many.
No thank you no. Not for me - more lock-in, more tracking, higher hurdles for smaller news outlets.
Edit: The new feature allows remote tracking by the news outlet.
"- Compatibility with comScore traffic measurement
- Compatibility Google Analytics to understand the audience
- To make sure Google Analytics worked across all its content
- Compatibility with BuzzFeed’s internal analytics tools
- Control of design to make Instant Articles look and feel like BuzzFeed articles
- Ability to work with BuzzFeed on special formats like quizzes
- Monetization"
And no chance of disabling tracking...
Edit: The new feature allows remote tracking by the news outlet.
"- Compatibility with comScore traffic measurement
- Compatibility Google Analytics to understand the audience
- To make sure Google Analytics worked across all its content
- Compatibility with BuzzFeed’s internal analytics tools
- Control of design to make Instant Articles look and feel like BuzzFeed articles
- Ability to work with BuzzFeed on special formats like quizzes
- Monetization"
And no chance of disabling tracking...
From a Facebook business point and feature point of view this is a great move.
One of Facebook's original strengths against MySpace was how orderly everything was organized. No crazy gifs and insane colorschemes, no large backgrounds that had to load from photobucket. Of course there was also unlimited photo upload.
I know a lot of politicians in Denmark use their Facebook profile for official comments on news matter and politics and I am sure a lot of them will be pleased to be able to publish more in depth material. Users will also be pleased with the certainty of the shape of the material. No pop-up, long loading time or noisy ads.
Judging from buzz feeds response I am however surprised by the gutsy move to ask publishers to host content on Facebook without even offering a monetization plan!
One of Facebook's original strengths against MySpace was how orderly everything was organized. No crazy gifs and insane colorschemes, no large backgrounds that had to load from photobucket. Of course there was also unlimited photo upload.
I know a lot of politicians in Denmark use their Facebook profile for official comments on news matter and politics and I am sure a lot of them will be pleased to be able to publish more in depth material. Users will also be pleased with the certainty of the shape of the material. No pop-up, long loading time or noisy ads.
Judging from buzz feeds response I am however surprised by the gutsy move to ask publishers to host content on Facebook without even offering a monetization plan!
Facebook wants to become the internet, and federate access to external material. No doubt that these "instant articles" will be free to access under internet.org and competing news outlets are suddenly put at a massive disadvantage.
If this catches on, I don't see how it does anything but set a very bad precedent.
Bad for who though?
Isn't it good for the writers? More people viewing the content?
Isn't it good for the users? A better experience?
Isn't it good for the writers? More people viewing the content?
Isn't it good for the users? A better experience?
Bad for society.
Accurate metrics seem to drive down the quality of publications. Websites with near-omniscient metrics often find that the best way to drive traffic is to deliberately produce shit-tier articles that drive clicks through controversy or pandering.
In the absence of accurate metrics, the writers/editors are forced to simply try their best to produce the best quality material. Their notion of what the "best quality" will be is informed by their background, generally set at universities.
Writers who are not driven by metrics will push on society. Writers who are driven by metrics will be pushed by society.
Accurate metrics seem to drive down the quality of publications. Websites with near-omniscient metrics often find that the best way to drive traffic is to deliberately produce shit-tier articles that drive clicks through controversy or pandering.
In the absence of accurate metrics, the writers/editors are forced to simply try their best to produce the best quality material. Their notion of what the "best quality" will be is informed by their background, generally set at universities.
Writers who are not driven by metrics will push on society. Writers who are driven by metrics will be pushed by society.
> Writers who are not driven by metrics will push on society. Writers who are driven by metrics will be pushed by society.
It's intriguing to think of this in the context of Plato's _Republic_. A simplistic conception of the philosopher-king might interpolate the positive relationship between knowledge and justice, and argue that the more knowledge one can obtain of reality, the better a leader one would be. Such a leader would seek out every metric available, right? But, as in the Allegory of the Cave [1], where people might become very skilled at interpreting shadows but never recognize the true Form of the hidden objects casting the shadows, metrics are only good when they convey the Truth... which, in the case of publication quality, may indeed be that justice is ill-served by journalistic pandering, and that metrics are inherently short-term.
Of course, Plato was also an advocate of censorship in the very same work [2], so any reading should be taken with a grain of salt. It's very interesting, though, that the idea of an "uncanny valley" of knowledge, of wrongly optimizing on a subset of the Truth, is an idea millennia old.
[1] http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... [2] http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/#SH1c
It's intriguing to think of this in the context of Plato's _Republic_. A simplistic conception of the philosopher-king might interpolate the positive relationship between knowledge and justice, and argue that the more knowledge one can obtain of reality, the better a leader one would be. Such a leader would seek out every metric available, right? But, as in the Allegory of the Cave [1], where people might become very skilled at interpreting shadows but never recognize the true Form of the hidden objects casting the shadows, metrics are only good when they convey the Truth... which, in the case of publication quality, may indeed be that justice is ill-served by journalistic pandering, and that metrics are inherently short-term.
Of course, Plato was also an advocate of censorship in the very same work [2], so any reading should be taken with a grain of salt. It's very interesting, though, that the idea of an "uncanny valley" of knowledge, of wrongly optimizing on a subset of the Truth, is an idea millennia old.
[1] http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... [2] http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/#SH1c
No, it's not good for the writers, nor is it good for the readers.
Facebook has set a trap, and is baiting readers and writers with some short term gains. At the long term, the only party that this is good for is Facebook itself.
That said, it's doomed to happen, sooner or later. I really don't know what to think about those initiatives anymore. Maybe what's important is that we keep an open internet, not that we keep the Internet open.
Facebook has set a trap, and is baiting readers and writers with some short term gains. At the long term, the only party that this is good for is Facebook itself.
That said, it's doomed to happen, sooner or later. I really don't know what to think about those initiatives anymore. Maybe what's important is that we keep an open internet, not that we keep the Internet open.
Bad for publishers. Continuing to relinquish control of their content & platform.
Users - I'd rather not get my information from facebook.
Users - I'd rather not get my information from facebook.
ah yes, thankfully facebook has only our best interests at heart.
This is a trap for publishers. You only have to look at how Facebook treated small businesses. We built up 4000 fans on our fan page (in the meantime helping FB grow) then FB throttled access to them, making us pay to reach our own fans. FB cannot be trusted.
Participating in this seems unwise for publishers but I agree with everyone saying from Facebook's point of view this is smart.
Facebook is not my desired source of news. The use case I had for Facebook is based upon it's original premise. Connecting with Friends, seeing what they are up to, where they are and sharing photos.
They are littering their platform with features that further dilutes the experience that everyone used to like/love. I despise seeing Buzzfeed and clickbait titles on the site. This is not the content I want to consume here. How can they get this so wrong??
They are littering their platform with features that further dilutes the experience that everyone used to like/love. I despise seeing Buzzfeed and clickbait titles on the site. This is not the content I want to consume here. How can they get this so wrong??
Does it also support ad placement? The "10x faster" is otherwise meaningless, since much of the weight of content on those partner sites undoubtedly comes from loading ads.
Another attempt to make Facebook's own Flipboard.
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