Facebook to host entire articles from major publications directly on its platform
With Instant Articles, Facebook is set to host content from publications such as BuzzFeed, The New York Times, National Geographic and others natively on its website.

The move is targeted to decrease load times for articles hosted externally, with The Wall Street Journal report stating that links shared on Facebook take around eight seconds to load on mobile devices:
Many publishers now post links to their content on Facebook, which has become an important source of online traffic for news sites. But opening those links on a mobile device can be slow and frustrating, taking around eight seconds.The Facebook initiative, dubbed Instant Articles, is aimed at speeding that process, people familiar with the matter said. Facebook plans to start hosting news and videos from BuzzFeed, The New York Times, National Geographic and other publishers as early as this month, those people said.
The social networking giant is also going to make changes to its revenue-sharing model to incentivize publishers to host their content on Facebook:
In one of the models under consideration, publishers would keep all of the revenue from ads they sell on Facebook-hosted news sites, the people familiar with the matter said. If Facebook sells the advertisement, it would keep roughly 30% of the revenue, as it does in many other cases.
By hosting content directly on its website, Facebook stands to boost its user engagement numbers as readers that would normally head to an external link will now spend more time on the social network. According to The Wall Street Journal, the list of launch partners is yet to be finalized, and should the deals not materialize shortly, the launch of Instant Articles will be pushed back to a later date. The website also noted that publishers were wary of handing over their content to the social network:
"It's not just about the bottom line," said an executive of one publisher that has had discussions with Facebook. "Publishers will still want to defend other aspects of the business."
Source: The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Harish Jonnalagadda is a Senior Editor overseeing Asia for Android Central, Windows Central's sister site. When not reviewing phones, he's testing PC hardware, including video cards, motherboards, gaming accessories, and keyboards.
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Does this mean even more closed content that non-Facebook users can't see? No thanks. This wont get me to rejoin either.
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It was a platform to meet and see friends, not get general news feed. Hope there is a toggle for it.
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I don't think so, the way I see it it is just an additional way to see these news items. It'll still all be on their respective sites, but when someone shares a link to an article you'll be able to see the whole thing on FB; it's purely convenience. I'm not a massive Facebook fan, but I've always wanted a website that'd bring all my sources together into one place; iGoogle used to be fairly decent until Google killed it. NetVibes and a couple of other sites I don't even remember anymore used to be my home page before then. I never expected FB to be the solution, but if they keep going in this direction then I expect i'll embrace it.
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Wtfuck is a facefuck book ?
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I wonder if Windows Phone users will be able to see it. As of now, we can't see the new threaded comments.
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Correct..nothing to worry! LOL!
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What the hell, Facebook is getting distracted really bad. I go to Facebook to see my friends not to read news
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I go to read news, not friend posts... Like, seriously.
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@Wam1q, so do I, I expect I need more interesting friends! But I see Facebook as becoming the portal to the internet, sure it'll have a monopoly, sure people will say it's evil, but really if it's useful and convenient then I could think of worse places for such a service (Google being no1).
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Suddenly, msn.com makes perfect sense!
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Lol.
You won this comment thread. -
I feel like this ironically pay-walled article is the perfect example why this might have potential. While I'm never going to sub to WSJ to read a single random article, maybe FB could pay them something acceptable. Seems good business when the alternative is to find coverage from alternate outlet before giving it the social media bump.
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I wonder why Facebook don't make the WP app by themselves. Why do Microsoft do the job?
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Maybe they are lazy.
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Same excuse every other company has except (sadly) Facebook is so central to lives that no phones would sell without it.
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I don't like Facebook ;|
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You are still on ICQ huh? Must be lonely.
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Lmao chill, I am more into Twitter.
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Being on Facebook is not very important, bro.
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Hi5!
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nah, straight up IRC it is
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Can't even take care of their own app and now this.
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They have their own app on WP?
Look closely and you'll see "Microsoft Corporation" as the publisher. -
Yeah keep on killing google search
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is it Facebook central or Windows central ?
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Please keep this out of my time line fb!
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Let me guess. Fb has apps on the windows store, which means windows phone users are on Fb. Hence, this article makes sense in a Microsoft/windows dedicated site. Cool, man. :D
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The articles about facebook on windows central are a big fail.
No interest. No relation. -
8 seconds? Awww... But I want it now. LMAO
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Lol.... I guess some have never used dial up!
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Bad old days!
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Well, im gonna ignore that. But I wish (Microsoft) facebook could update their app.
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I'm sure the news wont have a slant either.
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The move is targeted to decrease load times for articles hosted externally Uh-huh... and absolutely nothing to do with keeping all the ad-revenue in house instead of handing it off to pesky "third parties"? Publishers should jointly extend a big-fat middle finger in Facebook's direction and sue every time unauthorized content pops up on the network.
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Host a newsfeed that works properly? And stop hiding 1/3 of peoples/groups/pages posts because you want them to pay you to display them all, robbing cunts. Disgraceful.