What's a good way to entice a publisher to post more ads on Facebook? Offer them a bigger split. Or, in the case of Facebook's new "Instant Articles" initiative, offer them the entire pie—not just a slice.
According to reports, Facebook is allegedly working on new revenue-sharing models with content publishers who agree to let Facebook host their content for them. To Facebook, the money is less important than the speed at which Facebook can serve content and ads it hosts itself. Right now, content that publishers push to Facebook can take a bit of time to open on a mobile device—around 8 seconds or so, reports The Wall Street Journal.
If Facebook hosts the content, however, it can dramatically cut down on the time it takes people to see it. As well, more people would likely spend more time on Facebook itself (especially on mobile).
The issue? Some publishers are a bit skeptical about turning their content (or, at least, a subset) to Facebook itself. That's a lot of referral traffic to their websites that they'll be missing out on. Hence why Facebook is floating them a bigger carrot in the form of ad revenues. If publishers let Facebook host the content, they'll get to keep all of the revenues from ads they splash around that content on Facebook-hosted news sites. If Facebook takes care of the advertising, then the revenue returns to the 70-30 split (publisher-Facebook, that is) that these content providers typically enjoy on Facebook.
And, of course, hosting content on Facebook means that publishers might miss out on additional statistics they could get on their readers if they hosted content on their sites instead. It's still unclear just what kind of analysis tools Facebook might pack into its Instant Articles initiative—or, for that matter, just what kind of advertising (or advertising technology) publishers will be able to use for their Facebook advertising.
Facebook has allegedly already signed on Buzzfeed, The New York Times, and National Geographic to the new plan, as well as other unnamed publishers. And it's possible that the new Instant Articles could start up as soon as this month. It's also possible the timing for everything could completely change, and new publishers could sign up (or current ones could drop out) depending on how the various deals get finalized (if so).
And, as The Wall Street Journal teases, it remains to be seen just how Facebook will treat this kind of content in users' news feeds. Would it go so far as to more greatly promote Instant Articles over publishers' linked content? Hardball, yes, but an effective way for Facebook to shift content to its platform—and reduce users' loading times.
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