Social networking has a single, fundamental problem — a problem so deep that Facebook is trying to change a major aspect of its business.
That problem is linking.
What do I mean by that? Simple…
In your average week, 5.3 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook. Often, these pieces of content are hosted on sites other than Facebook. The only way for a Facebook user to see some content is to click a link. Every time that content is posted and shared, there’s a chance the user is going to navigate away from Facebook.
It’s a big loophole in social networking, and it exists on every site. We’re encouraged to share all of the attention-grabbing things we can, yet these interesting pieces of content often work against the very social network upon which we share them.
Facebook has fought tooth and nail to keep users within its walls. In its Instagram photo-sharing social network, for example, there is literally no way to share a link to another site except by embedding it in your profile description.
If a user posts a link to a YouTube video, the video is automatically embedded in Facebook, keeping the users in for a few more seconds.
In 2014, Facebook changed its mobile app to include its own bare-bones browser. When you clicked on a piece of content that would normally take you out of Facebook, you’d get a warning that you were leaving, but it wouldn’t open your mobile browser — it would open in a Facebook window.
On the publisher side of things, Facebook changed its newsfeed algorithm, and posts from media sites were busted down in users’ feeds. Basically, Facebook was punishing content producers from attracting users off the social network.
The last straw was visible in March when the social network announced it was going to have publishers put their content directly on Facebook so they could “control… their stories, brand experience, and monetization opportunities,” including ad campaigns and concise user metrics.
In short, Facebook doesn’t want publishers to draw users away. It wants to lure the publishers inside.
Instant Articles
Facebook claims the new “Instant Articles” feature has been done in the name of streamlining the user experience, but the truth is, it’s to keep people from leaving Facebook.
Today’s announcement of Instant Articles promises publishers a faster reading experience, with interactive functionality including audio captions, in-line article commenting, animated 3D maps, high-resolution photos, and so forth.
It is launching the feature with nine partner sites, including the New York Times, National Geographic, NBC News, The Atlantic, BBC News, Der Spiegel Online, Bild, The Guardian, and Buzzfeed.
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Facebook’s message has been clear all along: It wants you to share content, but only content that will keep its 1.4 billion users from going elsewhere.
These news companies are willing to abandon their own ecosystems in the hopes of attracting and keeping readers on Facebook. They’ll be able to monetize their content as they see fit, but only through parameters designed by Facebook itself.
It’s an interesting move in the evolution of online content and the maturation of social networking, but it pushes Facebook ever further into “walled garden” status.
Within a walled garden, a single entity has control over all content, applications, and access, and everyone who contributes content will have to play by the rules of the gardener. Famous examples include Apple’s iOS, iTunes, and app store, Amazon’s Kindle, and Microsoft’s Xbox Live.
The debate is still out on whether a walled garden is actually beneficial to the consumer, but there is no debate that the walled gardens I mentioned above are some of the most successful enterprises in media and consumer tech.
Good Investing,
Tim Conneally
For the last seven years, Tim Conneally has covered the world of mobile and wireless technology, enterprise software, network hardware, and next generation consumer technology. Tim has previously written for long-running software news outlet Betanews and for financial media powerhouse Forbes.
