

Facebook, With a Focus on Mobile, Works on Project for News Via Users - scg
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323998604578563853135203858-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMzEyNDMyWj.html

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uvdiv
In Soviet Russia, newspaper reads you!

(In Capitalist America, newspaper profitably sells many copies of you and goes
on to a healthy IPO).

((In Strossian America, sentient uploaded newspapers rove the clouds. They
hunt in packs)).

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kmfrk
I'm so tired of seeing these numbskulls from Silicon Valley trivialize what it
means for something to be a "newspaper", as if it's just some "content
organization" to aggregate.

I see the same thing with Medium. Beyond frustrating.

~~~
pizza234
Well, the vast majority of news media (including newspapers) are trivializing
the concept as well, for a few reasons, so the S.V. people are doing nothing
really different. For example it's generally horrific, for a person with a
scientific background, to read the "scientific" section of the mainstream
newspapers.

"News media" with a certain depth, which you are likely referring to, are only
a niche.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "For example it's generally horrific, for a person with a scientific
background, to read the "scientific" section of the mainstream newspapers"

Because it's a mainstream newspaper. That section is made so that ordinary
people can understand the content and get value from it. Specialist magazines
etc. go into the detail someone with prior knowledge in the subject would
need.

'Good' newspapers go into subjects in detail, providing the most important
information, but also make it understandable to everyone.

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Shish2k
By "best personalized newspaper" I guess they mean "most external-sound-proof
echo chamber", since that's the lines they've been going along so far?

I'd really like a website where you can tell it your opinions and it finds
intelligently written, interesting to read counter-arguments; though I can't
see such a service succeeding in a world where "changing your mind when
presented with new facts" is considered a sign of weakness :(

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mike_esspe
You can try this subreddit for getting counter-arguments:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview)

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joelrunyon
> "The opportunity to own the place where people go for long-form reading is a
> very large opportunity, especially for advertising," said Josh Elman

Is this an admittance that their current advertising offerings don't generate
as much revenue as desired?

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uvdiv
The quoted Josh Elman does not work for Facebook.

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talhof8
Facebook is no longer the social network it used to be. It creates too much
features, too much products in order to please its investors and shareholders.
Facebook is trying to compete with too much companies from various other
categories and I don't think is doing a very good job

~~~
kmfrk
It hasn't been a social network in a while; it's been - at least an attempt at
- a platform for a while.

I guess we're used to thinking of it like that, because Twitter still hasn't
branched out too much yet - although time will tell what comes of Vine and
#music, if anything.

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Irishsteve
Great another news aggregator and recommendation service(!).

To be fair their interest lists are really cool
[https://www.facebook.com/lists/10150896044944655](https://www.facebook.com/lists/10150896044944655)

Sadly all the ad's make it a painful experience. I'm sure they are just going
to clean things like that up and make it more usable.

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smegel
For some value of "news"

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benguild
This space has become fragmented enough that I'm actually quite curious to see
what Facebook's take on it is. However, personally, I don't want to tie-up any
more of my data in that platform, though.

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jbverschoor
Great.. time to create the next best thing.

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Mordor
WSJ must be quaking in their boots lol

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mtgx
So the mission has gone from being a social network to being a newspaper? This
shows that Facebook doesn't care about what users want from Facebook anymore,
but about what's going to make Facebook the most money.

This is exactly what I expected to happen after the IPO because their
revenue/profit still doesn't justify their valuation, which means they need to
focus a lot more on monetization and do it soon, before most investors wake up
to it. This hurry to monetize means they'll screw a lot of things up for the
users, and possibly even ruin Facebook for them.

~~~
flyinRyan
>This shows that Facebook doesn't care about what users want from Facebook
anymore, but about what's going to make Facebook the most money.

What? When has this _ever_ not been the case? Have you actually used facebook
from the (near) beginning? Because it's never been about _anything_ but what
makes the most money. Zuck and co have screwed everyone to cater to
advertisers since they first opened to the non-university internet (and I
wouldn't be surprised to learn it was going on even before that).

