(PM) — Facebook Inc., following in the footsteps of other technology giants, is working to create a human-run news curation service within at least its mobile Facebook app with job postings set to appear on Tuesday.
It has long been a tension-filled relationship between news publishers and social media networks. However, in recent years, there has been innovation to find solutions for news content.
Facebook in January 2018 announced an effort to focus News Feed more on personal interactions and the connections, or “friends” made on the social network, dropping the importance of hard news.
However, Facebook will before the year is up be testing News Tab, a service that could see the company partner with some major publishers to provide a curated experience much like most news sites themselves.
“Our goal with the News Tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” said Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, as reported by U.S. media.
“To start, for the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”
The effort is reminiscent of Apple News, a service started by the California giant that runs through an app on its mobile and desktop operating systems in some countries. It is curated by traditional journalists.
Both Apple and Facebook’s projects are and will be based on subscriptions by users. Bundled curation has, however, offered some barriers as not all publishers put up a paywall while others do.
That line is typically drawn between broadcast-based publishers and tradition newspaper publishers. For example, all of the major United States and Canada broadcasters post content for free while newspapers do not.
