Facebook’s free internet service expands to Malawi
As good a cause as it is, Internet.org recently came under pressure for allegedly violating India’s net neutrality laws — something Facebook was quick to address. Still, that’s not stopping the social network from spreading its initiative, which brings free basic web access to underdeveloped countries, across more places. Today Internet.org, backed also by companies like Nokia, Samsung and Qualcomm, is launching in Malawi, an African country with a population of 16 million-plus. Mark Zuckerberg let it be known in a Facebook post that, with this expansion, Internet.org is now available to over 1 billion people around the globe.
“Giving people free access is the right thing to do,” he said about the young program’s achievement. “We will keep connecting more people and more countries, and we won’t stop until every person in the world can connect to the internet.”
[Image credit: Associated Press]
Filed under: Wireless, Internet, Facebook
Source: Facebook
Facebook’s plan to host full news articles could start tomorrow
Facebook wants to do for news content what it’s done with native video, and the first bit of self-hosted editorial content (“Instant Articles”) could go live tomorrow. It’s starting with The New York Times and will include Buzzfeed, NBC News and National Geographic if unnamed sources speaking to New York Magazine are to be believed. Apparently NYT‘s business side is why a deal that surfaced in late March is only coming to fruition now, with CEO Mark Thompson’s push for “the most favorable” terms causing delays.
A Wall Street Journal report says The Social Network is offering to let publishers keep 100 percent of the money from ads they sell against an article, or 70 percent if Facebook sells the ad. That bit is incredibly important because without traffic going to, say, nytimes.com, and staying on Facebook instead, a publication could lose its ability to pay the bills and its employees. The big argument seems to be that NYT is working to insulate its million-plus digital subscribers from free content hosted on Zuckerberg’s baby, thus rendering a subscription kind of pointless. Regardless of if this is happening tomorrow or not, we won’t have to wait too long before we find out.
[Image credit: Alamy]
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Via: Poynter
Source: New York Magazine, Wall Street Journal
Facebook wants to help you share that must-read story
Picture the scene: you’re browsing on your phone when, suddenly, you find a list of the Top 10 celebrity pets that have killed people. Now, you just have to show this to your friends on Facebook, but that means finding the share link, holding it down until it copies, opening the app and pasting it in, which could take several seconds. Naturally, that’s an intolerable situation for Mark Zuckerberg, which is why the social network is testing a way to search and add these links from within the Facebook app itself. That way, all you’d have to do is click the Add Link button, type “10 celebrity pets that have kil…” and the link should pop up all by itself.
Facebook, as you may know, is all about trying to become a one-stop shop for everyone’s time on the internet. That’s why it’s offering its server space to host stories from the likes of Buzzfeed, the New York Times and National Geographic. After all, the more time you spend on Facebook, the more information can be gathered about your habits and the more ads can be sold to you. Then there’s the fact that this search engine could eventually be improved so you never feel compelled to spend time over at Google. The Add Link feature is currently being tested out with a small group of users in the US and, if successful, will probably roll out to everyone else in the world in due course.
[Image Credit: Shutterstock]
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Via: WSJ
Source: TechCrunch
Facebook is using your Instagram feed to suggest new friends
Notice some familiar faces popping up in Facebook’s “People You May Know” section? Well, there’s a reason for that. Zuckerberg & Co. recently began serving up suggestions for prospective connections based on your Instagram feed. It’s no surprise that Facebook would pull data from the filter-driven app, especially from folks who’ve linked the two — it does own the photo software after all. And as we’ve heard a few times before, Facebook likes its apps to share info. Of course, if you’re like me, you use the two social networks for entirely different reasons (food pics and keeping up with old pals, natch). Facebook confirmed that it “recently” began pulling data from Instagram based on who you follow, but wasn’t too keen on elaborating further.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Facebook
Source: The Daily Dot
Facebook: If your feed is an echo chamber, you need more friends
Facebook wants you to know that you’ve only got yourself to blame for the lack of diversity in views on your news feed. The social network has recently conducted a study to find out why people mostly see posts that mirror their own beliefs and to find out if a “filter bubble” is to blame. “Filter bubble” is what you call the situation wherein a website’s algorithm shows only posts based on what you clicked (or Liked) and commented on. For this particular study, the company used anonymous data from 10.1 million Facebook users who list their political affiliations on their profiles. Researchers monitored “hard news” links posted on the website and looked at whether they were posted by conservatives, liberals or moderates.
The result? According to a blog post on Facebook research, which details the contents of the study (emphasis ours):
“While News Feed surfaces content that is slightly more aligned with an individual’s own ideology (based on that person’s actions on Facebook), who they friend and what content they click on are more consequential than the News Feed ranking in terms of how much diverse content they encounter.”
The study admits that the filter bubble effect is real — in varying degrees, based on political affiliation — but it claims the website’s algorithms doesn’t play that big of a part. Who you’re friends with apparently has a more profound effect on your news feed, with the study pointing out that “birds of a feather flock together:”
Friends are more likely to be similar in age, educational attainment, occupation, and geography. It is not surprising to find that the same holds true for political affiliation on Facebook.
However, Eli Pariser, who once gave a TED talk on the perils of the filter bubble, warns that the study might be downplaying the effects of the Facebook algorithm. “Certainly, who your friends are matters a lot in social media,” he writes in his response to the study on Medium. “But the fact that the algorithm’s narrowing effect is nearly as strong as our own avoidance of views we disagree with suggests that it’s actually a pretty big deal.”
Pariser isn’t the study’s only critic either: Christian Sandvig from Social Media Collective argues that there’s a very small percentage of Facebook users that volunteer “interpretable ideological affiliations” on their profiles, which is one of the requirements to be part of the research. He writes: “We would expect that a small minority who publicly identifies an interpretable political orientation to be very likely to behave quite differently than the average person with respect to consuming ideological political news.” Sandvig also finds the way the study was framed to be questionable, almost as if it was written as an alibi: “Facebook is saying: It’s not our fault! You do it too!”
As you can see, the study’s become quite controversial. If you want to come up with your own conclusions, you can pore over the study on Facebook Research for a more thorough look at the results, and see even more details in the paper published in Science.
Via: The Verge
Get ready for your Facebook friends to tell you they voted
The UK’s General Election is this Thursday, and if marking a cross next to your preferred MP fills you with pride, Facebook will soon make it easier to tell your friends and family. The company is introducing a special “I’m a Voter” button at the top of Brits’ News Feeds, prompting you to write a status update that explains you’ve been to the polling station. The feature has been used for the last three US elections and the Scottish referendum — not only does it publicise your own vote, but it could also nudge other people that have forgotten the date or been debating whether to vote at all. Channel 4, meanwhile, has already pledged to suspend its regular programming on E4 in order to encourage young people to vote. Neither company can force you to take part, but it’s hoped these sorts of initiatives will improve voter turnout and create a more representative election.
Filed under: Facebook
Via: Mashable
Facebook taps Nokia for its mapping know-how
If Facebook’s maps for mobile have suddenly gotten a whole lot more (or less) accurate, there’s a reason. The social network is now sourcing its location data from Here, Nokia’s soon-to-be-sold mapping division. According to TechCrunch’s sources, only the mobile web version is using the new information, but Facebook is currently testing whether to roll Here’s Maps out to all of its standalone apps like Messenger and Instagram. It’s hoped that, with more accurate geolocation data, the company can offer advertisers even more minute control over who gets what product thrown in their face. Of course, Facebook is also one of the companies that is believed to be considering buying Here outright. Given this news, however, we’d imagine it being a lot less likely — after all, why buy the cow if you’re getting the milk for free?
Source: TechCrunch
Meerkat breaks up with Twitter, jumps into bed with Facebook instead
If your social media startup uses Twitter as a link to the people, then you run the risk of getting your lifeline cut off should you get too popular. After all, Twitter tried to crowd Instagram out with Twitter Video, Picture Sharing and Vine, and the social network is now trying to supplant Meerkat with Periscope. It’s one of the reasons that, in its most recent update, Meerkat has broken its close association with the site, making a Twitter account entirely optional.
Even better, is that users can now post their live video streams to Facebook, and you’ll also be able to find users who are in your phone book. It’s previously been quite an issue, since Twitter cut off Meerkat’s access to the social graph, making finding your friends that little bit harder. The updated Meerkat is available in the App Store (or, you know, on your phone), and we can presume these features will also hit the Android beta at some point in the future, too.
[Image Credit: Getty]
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Via: Venturebeat
Source: Meerkat (Medium)
Facebook opens up Internet.org in wake of net neutrality concerns
Led by Facebook but with backing from a number of other prominent tech companies, Internet.org has made slow but steady progress in a bid to connect underserved countries around the globe. However, despite its altruistic approach, the project has come under fire in India for allegedly violating net neutrality rules by favoring certain carriers, sites and services. Zuckerberg and co. certainly don’t want those criticisms hanging over their head, so today the Facebook CEO confirmed that the company will open up the Internet.org platform to developers, allowing them to create their own mobile-centric tools for millions of (often) first-time internet users.
The majority of users will utilize the free service on a featurephone, so Facebook is requiring that developers adhere to a basic set of rules. Firstly, they must create tools that don’t place restrictions on what users can see. Sites are encouraged to be as efficient as possible, so they load quickly and aren’t bogged down by voice, video, downloads or large photos. That means providers aren’t overloaded by data and they can continue investing in their infrastructure. Zuckerberg hopes that by “more transparent and inclusive,” companies like Cleartrip, NewsHunt, NDTV and the Times Group in India will bring their sites back, allowing citizens to browse the best of the web.
Source: Facebook
WSJ: Facebook to start hosting other sites’ content this May
Facebook might start natively hosting full Buzzfeed, National Geographic and The New York Times articles and videos as soon as this month, according to The Wall Street Journal. This new feature is called “Instant Articles,” and the social network has been working on it since March, at the very least. Facebook is reportedly offering news organizations special ad models that maximize their earning potential to entice them to sign up. One of the models it’s proposing will even allow publishers to keep 100 percent of what they earn from ads they themselves sell, as well as 70 percent of the revenues from ads Facebook sells for them.
The report says Facebook doesn’t mind earning almost nothing from the arrangement, because this project was never meant to earn the company money — it’s more of a tactic to get people to stay on the website for longer hours. The social network is hoping users would prefer reading posts and watching videos on their news feeds over loading website links, which apparently takes around eight seconds every time.
Despite the enticing offer, some publishers aren’t too keen on being more tightly integrated with the social network. They’re not happy with the thought of giving the social network control over their content and not having access to their readers’ info. In fact, the WSJ says Facebook is still in the midst of closing the deal with its three launch partners, so Instant Articles’ debut could still be moved to a later date.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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