Facebook has been working hard on its news features over the past few months. And now, according to The Wall Street Journal, the social network is building a feature to allow its users to subscribe to various news publications. Now this is said to be a bit different from just following different news organizations on Facebook, which many people already do. There are still plenty of details about this feature that have not surfaced, or been announced, and this is all coming from a report out of The Wall Street Journal, who talked with several sources at Facebook. However, this feature is said to be available before the end of 2017, and it’ll be available through its mobile application.
Since “fake news” became such a big deal after the election last fall, Facebook has been revamping the way the website handles news. The company has made it possible for users to confirm that news is real, and also flag it as fake news. Now the company is looking to take things a bit further. This new feature, while there’s not much to go on here, appears to be a stab at taking over Google News. And making Facebook a news reader. While most people already use Facebook this way, it appears to be a bit more streamlined then it had been before. Facebook is the most popular social media network in the world right now, so it makes sense for the company to continue to use that to its advantage and bring in more users.
Facebook is always looking for ways to keep its users engaged on its network, and keep bringing in new users. This is something that is not exclusive to just Facebook however. Twitter and other social media companies have been looking to do the same thing. As users that spend more time on their network also see more ads, and thus drive in more revenue for the company. And with video ads becoming a bigger deal (largely because it does pay more), keeping users on the site is a pretty big deal, and so is bringing more video to the platform.