Facebook Offers to Let Publishers Keep Revenue From Certain Ads with Instant Articles
By the end of May 2015 Facebook users will start seeing full New York Times, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic articles and videos directly in their Facebook timeline. The new feature which is called Instant Articles and allows 1 billion plus Facebook users to read full news articles without leaving the confines of Facebook. Facebook has been trying to implement this feature for some time now as it feels that visitors leaving Facebook to read such articles is actually a loss of revenue.
To make Instant Articles a interesting and an earning proposition for the publishers, Facebook is also offering to let publishers keep all the revenue from certain ads. Facebook hopes that the publishers will then use FB to distribute content through the social network.
Another scheme that is being considered is that publications will keep all ad revenue from articles posted on Facebook if the sites themselves sell the ads. However if Facebook puts up the ads, it will keep 30 percent of the revenue for itself.
This is actually a win win situation for both, Facebook and users. For Facebook it will mean that users never leave FB to visit outside links while for users, it will mean that they get tailored news feeds with faster loading time.
As of now many publishers now post links to their content on Facebook which open outside of Facebook. The links often take too much time, especially on mobile devices, which can be frustration for users. Instant Articles will also give publishers a ready made platform to sell their ads.
