Inside PR 495: Facebook drops news. Now what?

Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg last week announced that Facebook’s solution for fake news is to remove news from the newsfeed. In making the announcement, Zuckerberg said:

“…I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.

“…The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.

“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

So, less news in the newsfeed. More things that my friends share or that I click on. Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about the implications of this for news outlets, PR people and Facebook users themselves.

Some people say this is not a problem for them. Others say that this could be the nail in their coffin. It will take some time for this play out. It most assuredly creates a vacuum. And that could well lead to a period of innovation as publishers and communicators turn to other platforms and tools (check out Feedly).

However this turns out, there is no doubt that Facebook always looks after its own business interests. And in this case, its interest simply was not to come to grips with the problem it created in its relentless push to aggregate audiences and content outlets.

Facebook made this mess. Now the rest of us are left to deal with it.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Inside PR 495: Facebook drops news. Now what? by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://insidepr.ca.

Inside PR 465: We make it virtual

Let’s talk about the failure of distributed content, the elimination of U.S. privacy protections for foreigners, and taking your agency virtual. Gini DietrichMartin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Distributing content on Facebook and other social platforms hasn’t proven to be the bonanza publishers need

A new study, reported by Digiday, reveals that a year into the new Distributed Publishing era, in which news media publish their content on platforms like Facebook, Google Amp, SnapChat Discovery, the revenues have not lived up to expectations. In fact, only 14 percent of publisher revenue is coming from distributed content. Another bullet that turned out not to be so magical. So, the search for new revenue sources continues. And their search includes podcasting. Witness the new podcast from the New York Times, The Daily.

Foreigners take note. You’ve lost data privacy protection in the U.S.

In a world in which privacy protection is often assumed and opaque, news that non-Americans have been stripped of privacy protection in the United States may influence decisions about non-Americans to seek cloud and data solutions that guarantee that their data will reside outside of the United States. Thanks to Michael Geist for pointing this out.

Virtual vs. Brick and Mortar communications agencies

Gini did it. Martin did it. Joe’s playing with a hybrid version of it. As our work applications have moved into the cloud and video conferencing and document sharing has become a one click experience on both laptops and phones, it has become easier than ever to stay connected with a distributed team. Have we reached the point the tipping point in which the benefits of virtual teams have matched and even exceeded the benefits of assembling a cohesive team in one place?

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.