BY FAITH MUTETE – Facebook has introduced a special treat for news pages as it plans to now not only recognize their content but also pay them for their headlines.
All one has to do is enter the news tab, which is a new section in the Facebook mobile app that will display headlines, and tapping on the headlines will take you directly to publisher websites or apps if you have any installed.
Some of the news pages that will be recognized include Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Business Insider, NBC, USA Today and Los Angeles Times; amongst others.
In its 15-year history, Facebook has ignored news organizations while eating into their advertising revenue, courted them for video projects it subsequently abandoned, and then largely cut their stories out of its newsfeeds.
Zuckerberg said Facebook aims to set up partnerships with a “wide range” of publishers.
“We think that this is an opportunity to build something quite meaningful here,” he said. “We’re going to have journalists curating this, we are really focused on provenance and branding and where the stories come from.”
Facebook did not say who is getting paid and how much they would get , but its CEO said that this would be a great opportunity to set up new long –term , stable financial relationships with publishers.
