Soon, Facebook may start serving 'high-quality' news to users: Zuckerberg
While focusing on the element of privacy and internet regulation, Mark Zuckerberg has mooted the idea of introducing a dedicated tab for exploring news on Facebook. More than a year after declaring Facebook would feature less news, Zuckerberg has taken a classic U-turn. He has now suggested that the platform could partner directly with the publishers to offer 'high-quality' content to the users.
Zuckerberg's conversation with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner
As part of his resolution to hold talks about the future of technology, Zuckerberg had an hour-long conversation with Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Europe's largest publisher Axel Springer. The duo discussed a number of issues, including the "principals Facebook should use for building a news tab to surface more high-quality news" and the "ecosystem to support it".
Zuckerberg suggested to have a direct relationship with publishers
Zuckerberg suggested that Facebook wants to build a service to offer high-quality news to people 'who want more news' and is looking into how the content should be delivered to the audience. He added that the company could "potentially have a direct relationship with publishers to make sure that their content is available if it's really high-quality content."
News tab could be similar to Facebook Watch
Though there's no word on what the news tab would look like, Zuckerberg did indicate it might be similar to the Watch tab for exploring video content. However, at the same time, he also expressed uncertainty if users should be allowed to personalize their news preferences or their editors should curate it for them - which hasn't proved successful in the past.
Facebook's plan follows Apple News+ launch
The plan of Facebook's news tab comes a week after the grand launch of Apple's News+ service. Recode reports that the section would launch by the end of this year and would be free for use for everyone. However, as of now, it is not clear how Facebook would get publishers onboard for the service. Perhaps, it would pay them or share ad revenue.