Facebook unveils Instant Articles, lets publishers keep revenue from certain ads

Social networking site Facebook is considering to offer publishers, all the revenue from certain advertisements, in an attempt to persuade them to share content through the website. As of now, many publishers post links from their respective website on Facebook which brings in a lot of traffic to the website but this same process, takes much longer on a smartphone, approximately 7-8 seconds. According to Wall Street Journal, the new initiative by the company, dubbed Instant Articles aims at speeding the process on how individuals view links on their phones. It will start hosting news and videos from popular websites such as BuzzFeed, The New York Times, National Geographic and others as early as this month, people familiar with the matter said. The company hopes that this move will make users spend more time on the website, instead of moving onto other sites during the time spent on the Internet. Publishers who use this service will be entitled to keep the revenue from all ads, sold through news websites hosted by Facebook. The report adds that deals with Facebook’s launch partners are not yet finalised. The company is in active talks with other publishers as well. With this move, Facebook aims for faster loading content and will hence, encourage users to spend more time on its network although, a few publishers are concerned over a few perspectives. According to the report, ’they want to retain control over the user experience, as well as access to data on their readers’. In the past, publishers have been angered with the fact that ‘changes in the formula’ that is, how Facebook places items in users’ homepage, triggers a sharp drop to their website’s traffic from Facebook.