Like any industry, the media loves a bit of navel-gazing. Facebook hosting doesn’t change things, the world already changed blog article tells that when Facebook announced they were offering to host content from media sites like The New York Times, the media went into a frenzy of apocalyptic prediction, with Mark Zuckerberg in the role of Mephistopheles. All this sound and fury, signifying nothing. Whether media sites allow Facebook to host their content or not won’t meaningfully change things one way or the other, and much of the FUD being spread would be energy better spent focused on other far larger problems:
News is getting commodified. The days of being special just for covering a story are over.
…distribution is effectively free. Instead of pulp, our words take the form of bits that are distributed across
Marketing is cheaper. You can use Twitter or Facebook or other social media to make a name for yourself
…competition for attention is at an all-time high and getting worse. When it comes to user attention, the one finite resource left in media, most distractions are close substitutes.
Facebook and Twitter and other social media drive a huge % of the discovery of content. Media companies can already see this through their referral logs. The media companies are not generally good at utilizing this:
…media ad experiences are awful.
…media business models are not great. Monopolies don’t have to have great business models
…tech companies have better ad platforms than media companies
…tech companies have a tech hiring advantage on non-tech companies.
Tech companies are rich. It’s worth repeating: all the things above have been happening, are happening, and will continue to happen whether or not Facebook hosts your content.
This may all sound grim for media companies, but here’s the kicker: it really is that grim.
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