News outlets, Facebook in talks about exclusive content

by Stephanie Medeiros (Guest Contributor/Digital Journalist)

Several news sources are in talks with the social network giant to provide exclusive news and content through Facebook.

Major news sources such as The Washington Post, CNN and The Daily are currently negotiating a deal with Facebook that would give the behemoth social network the ability to offer “exclusive” content and contend with similar services of competitors.

Facebook would provide the platform for the content and the news outlets will give Facebook access to content made available only through the social network, similar to a Web app.

All Facebook reports that Forbes Mixed Media analyst Jeff Bercovici said that this service could be provided as early as September. He also added that Facebook will more than likely be receiving compensation through ad-revenue from sales as well as a percentage of sales from subscriptions.

Facebook currently has several partnerships with major movie and television studios, which offer specialized offers through the social network. Bercovici pointed out that users have the ability to rent episodes of Doctor Who from BBC through Facebook.

Facebook’s aim is mostly on Google, who also have a similar partnership in the works with news outlets in offering exclusive content, Bercovici says. Also, Facebook must now compete with Google’s own fledgling social network, Google+, which already have several news networks such as ABC, Al Jazeera English and MSNBC using the service and a rapidly growing membership base.Other tech giants have already created similar content services, like Yahoo Pulse and LinkedIn Today.

However, with roughly over 700 million people using Facebook, the social network might prove to be the leader among the pack soon enough.

This article was originally published on Digital Journal [Link]