Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) doesn’t like it when users click off site to do things like read news articles. To help rectify this problem, the social networking giant is in talks with major media companies to host their content on Facebook in exchange for ad revenue according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The amount of ad revenue and the control publishers would have is not yet known. Facebook’s rationale for creating the project is twofold: to keep users on Facebook’s network, and to ensure that users are not subjected to frustratingly long load times when clicking on external links.
For publishers this may be a complicated proposition. Many of the world’s biggest media sites receive a large percentage of their traffic from Facebook. A sound Facebook strategy is a must for publishers, particularly for publications that specialize in low-brow clickbait content.
However for Facebook this is also a lose-lose situation. Facebook isn’t monetizing this traffic as people are clicking off-site.
There’s not much more information available, as negotiations are underway behind closed doors. No doubt Facebook has the upper hand in these negotiations, as the traffic that it can provide to publications is a lifeline. Eventually Facebook would have had to do something like this as it needs new revenue channels. But publishers need to ensure that they get a fair deal in order to protect their brands and site rankings.
