Main Highlights:
- The business is attempting to push more video content from creators into users’ feeds while diverting resources away from more text-focused offerings such as its News tab and Bulletin mailing platform.
- Facebook executive Campbell Brown informed staff of the shift in priorities in a message. Meta-owned Facebook will spend less effort on News and Bulletin in the future in order to “heighten their focus on developing a more comprehensive Creator economy.”
- ” The “metaverse,” according to Meta, is the integrated environment that connects all of the company’s products and services.
- Newsletters and news in general would be put on the back burner in such a video-heavy environment.
Facebook is just 18 years old, but it’s experiencing a mid-life crisis, with user numbers dropping and TikTok eating its Gen Z lunch. As a result, the business is attempting to push more video content from creators into users’ feeds while diverting resources away from more text-focused offerings such as its News tab and Bulletin mailing platform.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook executive Campbell Brown informed staff of the shift in priorities in a recent message. Brown stated that the technical and product teams at Meta-owned Facebook will spend less effort on News and Bulletin in the future in order to “heighten their focus on developing a more comprehensive Creator economy.”
The Verge independently confirmed this shift in priority, while a Meta spokesperson said that the company is always assessing where to allocate resources, and that its teams “remain committed to the success of creators, and are doing even more to ensure they can find audiences on Facebook and grow engaged communities there.”
Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta and formerly known as Facebook, Inc. and TheFacebook, Inc., is a Menlo Park, California-based American global technology company. Among other things, the business owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Meta is one of the most valuable corporations in the world. Along with Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, it is considered one of the Big Five American information technology corporations. Facebook, Messenger, Facebook Watch, and Facebook Portal are examples of meta goods and services. It also owns Oculus, Giphy, Mapillary, Kustomer, and Presize, as well as a 9.99 percent investment in Jio Platforms. The selling of advertisement spots to marketers produced 97.5 percent of the company’s income in 2021.
In October 2021, Facebook’s parent corporation changed its name from Facebook, Inc. to Meta to “reflect its focus on establishing the metaverse.” The “metaverse,” according to Meta, is the integrated environment that connects all of the company’s products and services.
In 2019, Facebook launched News, for which it paid companies such as The New York Times and The Washington Post to aggregate their material. Deals with news sites were worth millions of dollars, and the News tab mixed human-curated content with automated suggestions. It has been rumoured that Facebook is not interested in renewing these contracts, however no formal statements have been made. Facebook News connects you to more of the news that matters to you. You may also access News by putting “Facebook News” into your Facebook app’s search box and pressing the Facebook News shortcut.
In the United Kingdom, news is only available on the Facebook applications for Android and iPhone. You will be unable to view News using your browser.
Facebook News collaborated with some of the leading news brands in the UK to bring their finest articles into Facebook News, ensuring that you get relevant news every time you open it. Facebook News links you to more of the news you care about by aggregating original reporting from over 500 publications spanning national, local, and lifestyle outlets.
Meanwhile, Facebook Bulletin debuted last year as a competitor to newsletter behemoth Substack, and the firm drew some big names for its launch, including best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. However, the product does not appear to have had much of an impact since then, with Facebook instead emphasising its gradual and “meaningful” development. One of the few actual facts the firm provided on the size of Bulletin in a blog post last year was that “50% of the authors on Bulletin have over 1,000 free email subscribers, with many having more than 5,000 or 10,000” – tiny amounts considering Facebook’s massive scale.
The news of this shift in focus should come as no surprise. The Verge reported in June on adjustments Facebook planned to make to its primary algorithm, which would convert users’ feeds into TikTok-lite by focusing on visual content from artists rather than friends’ updates. Newsletters and news in general would be put on the back burner in such a video-heavy environment.
