Facebook to begin testing its news subscription feature, publisher's logo to be present in news articles

Facebook will begin testing new ways to help news organization to grow their subscriptions at a time when the digital space has become the hotbed of news consumption. [caption id=“attachment_3866585” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Facebook’s Instant Artcles will charge subscription fees. Facebook[/caption] Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, in a post on Facebook, stated that the **money generated from this subscription** will directly go in the pocket of the publishers and that the tech giant will have nothing to do with it. In another update from Zuckerberg, he says that whenever people search for a trending article or news on Facebook, the publisher’s logo will be present. According to Zuckerberg, the update came into the picture with the consent of various publishers who wished to add this feature in Facebook.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have already abandoned Facebook’s Instant Articles format. In a similar subscription model, Apple asks its user to subscribe to the news publisher, however Apple take a thirty percent cut from the subscription fee. A while ago, Facebook’s Head of News and Partnership, Campbell Brown, had said that **it intends to build a paywall system** on Facebook for all articles. After every ten articles, the user would be prompted to pay in order read further. Brown had confirmed that it would begin testing the feature in October. However, Zuckerberg in his recent post confirmed that the feature would roll out this week. In the post, Zuckerberg said, “We plan to start with a small group of US and European publishers later this year and we’ll listen to their feedback.” At a time when traditional publishers in the US and Europe are economically hit by vagaries of the digital space, it has become difficult for them to remain profitable.