Washington Post's Stories To Be Published On Facebook

The Washington Post would soon disseminate its stories through Facebook's Instant Articles platform.

Facebook’s platform would soon be flooded with a publication’s articles. Most media companies are interested in posting a set of stories on social platform’s Instant Articles; the Washing post aims to act in a different manner. The paper stated on Tuesday that it would post 100% of its website’s articles to Instant Articles. That contributes to roughly 1200 articles per day encompassing wire stories.

“We want to reach current and future readers on all platforms, and we aren’t holding anything back”, its publisher, Fred Ryan, stated. Facebook News today revealed that the company’s Instant Articles features, which has been launched gradually since it was proclaimed in May, permits media agencies to post their content directly on Facebook networker’s feeds, instead of the conventional approach of linking back to their webpages. The social platform pledges that Instant Articles would be speeding up load time for stories and would play a significant role in reaching larger audiences.

Facebook News affirmed that various publications, including Buzz Feed, New York Times, and the Atlantic, have signed during the launch, and on Tuesday others, such as Huffington Post, Vox Media, Daily Mail, Mashable, and MoviePlot, have also followed them. The Post has proclaimed that output would be significantly higher than that explained so far by the organization’s other collaborators.

The NYT, for instance, has stated it was testing with posting around 30 articles each day directly to Facebook’s news feed but had not pledged to a company number. Similarly, NBC News has also been posting 30 or 40 articles each day.

The Atlantic has stated that it was ready to share its content available through Facebook’s program and the official at Buzz Feed, Jonah Peretti, stated that his webpage is interested in posting as much content as possible on its network.

Facebook Breaking news reported that Instant Articles is one of the various new networks available to publications. A photo messaging application SnapChat offers a news platform, known as Discover, which has already logged up 15 publishers, including National Geographic, the Daily Mail, and Vice Media. Many publications also have logged on to post content in Apple’s News application, which released last week.

Commercial sources reported that Wall Street Journal is negotiating with Facebook but has not agreed to join in. Washington Post’s decision would influence readers towards the social media platform.

Facebook should operate the media-friendly initiative properly to dominate the competitive market and stay ahead of its rivals.

Facebook's Real Name Policy Faces Criticism

An information sharing policy of the Facebook is proving to be quite controversial.

An information sharing policy of the American social network, Facebook, is proving to be quite controversial. Facebook news reported that a sizeable number of people have protested against the company’s real names policy, which permits it to delete the profiles of people who use names that differ from those on their birth certificates.

Different kinds of users have been adversely affected by this initiative, such as sex workers, political dissidents, Native Americans, doctors, therapeutic experts, and survivalists of sexual and domestic violence.

Facebook news today informed that the transgender community would be mostly affected by the company’s policy because administrative and financial barriers do not permit them to change names. If a reported user fails to submit identification confirming his name, then the company would block his or her social media account.

A number of users have reported that the company’s policy has been used to bully them, as stated by Facebook breaking news. People face various threats on the social network. One user stated that a 'networker' told her that he hopes that a man beats her to death. She added that statement was given after she rejected his sexual intentions and then instantly discovered that her account has been reported.

Market sources have revealed that the organizer of the protests has stated that my own social media profile has been suspended and reported on a number of occasions. He added that a number of factors force people to use their fake names, such as cultural heritage, privacy and experiences of abuse, violence and stalking. One of the platform’s users has stated that her fake name helped her avoid the abuse that she would have otherwise faced in her life.

Industry sources stated that the advantage provided by the network’s privacy features do not tend to hide information regarding networks, photo, and name. The publicity of these details creates difficulties for users, as they can be easily found. Facebook’s management defends its policy by claiming that anti-fake name feature protects users from harassment and bullying. The networking organization has failed to provide any data to support its claim. The objections of the stakeholders tend to help the cause of its rivals.

Unlike other technologically advanced features, the ‘real name’ option is exercised in a very strict manner. Industry experts presented their view that if the company fails to satisfy the opponents of its name policy, it might lose a significant number of users. It should now plan to make sure that the concerns of the affected stakeholders are resolved, or it might face consequences in the highly competitive world.

Facebook Messenger App Unveils Voice Calling Facility

Facebook unveils voice calling feature through Messenger app

Facebook Inc. is one of those platforms that offer numerous services apart from its social media platform that have intrigued the masses. The company has launched several app and desktop based sites that are extremely popular amongst the masses. WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger are few successful endeavors of the company. Facebook constantly modifies its app by adding new features. Thus, now the company is offering its Messenger app users with free voice calling facility.

Earlier people had to login at several other voice and video calling platforms to connect with their loved ones. But now the vigorous task has become fairly easier since now Messenger users can voice or video call their friends anywhere anytime by just one tap.

As reported by latest Facebook news, the layout is fairly simple and intriguing. An icon is present on the top right of the screen that will allow users to call their family and friends who are already present on Messenger. The front camera will initially be in use. However, users will have the liberty to switch to the back camera according to their needs. The window shown on Messenger during the call actually denotes where the camera is currently pointing at which can be dragged around according to the users preference. Moreover, the company understands that at times the Internet quality does not support video calling. Therefore, users can always switch to simple audio call on case they experience distortion.

Before FB actually launched its voice calling feature, users already enjoyed this facility on Facebook Messenger to come in contact with family and friends. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Facebook announced that almost 10 per cent VoIP calls that are made across the globally are done through Messenger.

The ability to make calls in real time makes connectivity so much easier. The company is enthralled by the response they have received from users even before the official launch which makes them optimistic about the future of this feature.

Before FB actually launched its voice calling feature, users already enjoyed this facility on Facebook Messenger to come in contact with family and friends. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Facebook announced that almost 10 per cent VoIP calls that are made across the globally are sone through Messenger.

The ability to make calls in real time makes connectivity so much easier. The company is enthralled by the response they have received from users even before the official launch which makes them optimistic about the future of this feature.

This is certainly not the first time when Facebook has come up with video calling facility. However in 2011, it came up with a similar facility in collaboration with Skype. But now it does not need the support of third party apps since it had its own "video communication infrastructure". This makes Facebook a staunch competitor to Apple owned FaceTime, Google owned Hangout and Skype.

Facebook stocks are likely to benefit from this new feature since more users will be inclined to Messenger now for VoIP calls

Facebook Messenger Platform To Explore Horizons and Realizing Full Potential

Facebook plans to make Messenger a better social portal, will it be inspired by WeChat?

Latest Facebook news, the initiative of creating a platform by Facebook is for the purpose of owning the experience with smart phone internet in such unique way which has been unknown to West so far.

There are many examples of Asian apps that have broaden vision of messaging. The apps that can be of help for Facebook in this initiative are WeChat from China. It offers games, multimedia or camera apps. WeChat belongs to Tencent and it has become the basic mobile internet gateway within years.

However, according to the Facebook news, it is not on the path of introducing games within the messenger app or outside. It is more inclined towards media via integration of apps belonging to third-party. For example, those apps could be GIF portal Giphy, ESPN – a news content portal, Facebook’s in-house selfie apps. It has unveiled the feature that lets to bridge the gap between the business and consumers by letting them communicate directly via Messenger. It is similar to Path though. We don’t see any up-coming announcement of it being integrated with Uber, despite the fact that Uber does allow third-party apps integration and on request services as well.

This might be possible that these services get integrated with Messenger in coming days or months. This approach is necessary for Facebook if it has to grow and become a useful portal like WeChat. But there could be one reason why the social network giant is not rushing into this advancement as for now, it needs to test the few advancements first in US which is the second largest smart phone using country. Ironically no chat app has been a hit so far in this region as well.

There are major cultural differences between the regions therefore creating the app as that of belonging to China would be a greater challenge in U.S. In Asia, many consumers are on pre-pay mobile packages and therefore, fee text messaging and voice calls via Internet are an attractive functionalities.

Many people in these regions have to pay for the text messages and calls, in package deal or individual. Therefore when internet-powered communications such as that of WeChat, Line or WhatsApp have sudden and powerful value that keeps the user hooked to these applications.

On the other hand, iMessage and low cost of SMS in U.S makes it challenging for Facebook to make a convincing use case. The same goes for Facebook Messenger, Twitter DMs and related social network. The major question is, if you were able to communicate with your friends for free for all these years, why would you be switching now?