Facebook Is Asking Publishers To Post Their Articles Direct To Its Mobile App (FB) | ||
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Facebook is proposing a revenue share deal with publishers that could see newspapers, magazines, and websites send their articles for the social network to host direct on its mobile app, the New York Times reports. Facebook has recent embarked on a “listening tour” with publishers, discussing better ways they can collaborate, particularly when it comes to mobile, the article details. Facebook, whose mobile app is opened up by 654 million users daily, has honed its mobile offering to load up content quickly. Publisher websites, on the other hand, can be clunky and are often slowed by the amount of advertising they host, where a number of auctions take place in a matter of milliseconds to determine the highest bidder for an ad spot. Facebook hopes to provide publishers with a quick fix to that issue and make content consumption on mobile more seamless. The direct-to-Facebook publishing approach is just one of the options on the table. The idea is that any advertising revenue would be shared (although it’s not yet clear what the split would be.) The suggestion is likely to send a “cold, dark chill” down the spines of publishers, the New York Times, writes. Not only does it signal Facebook’s growing influence over the media — it is the principal source of referral traffic to the majority of digital publishers — but signing up to a content share agreement would no doubt also mean that they would be signing away the rights to data about how their readers consume their content. However, with its 1.3 billion users worldwide, and a finely-tuned algorithm that attempts to surface only the most interesting and relevant content to users, it is important for publishers to maintain an amicable relationship with Facebook — even if many would prefer it was kept at arm’s length. Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox told The New York Times: “We are at the very beginning of a conversation and it’s very important that we get this right. Because we play an increasingly important role in how people discover the news that they read every day, we feel a responsibility to work with publishers to come up with as good an experience as we can for consumers. And we want and need that to be a good experience for publishers as well.” This new suggestion for mobile content would not be the first time Facebook has asked publishers to form content partnerships. In 2011, a number of publishers including The Guardian, The Washington Post, Business Insider and The Independent partnered with Facebook to create “Social Reader” apps to allow users to consume and share content in the Facebook environment. However, in 2012 the majority of those publishers began to phase out those apps as although many of them proved extremely popular, the majority of the engagement was happening only on the Facebook platform, without much click-through to the publishers’ own sites (where they can generate revenue.). In some cases it was even cannibalizing traffic to publishers' own sites. The Social Reader App also generated what many users deemed as excessive updates about what readers were reading, clunking up the News Feed. Earlier this year Facebook also launched standalone app Paper, its answer to news aggregation apps like Feedly and Flipboard. However, its popularity tanked soon after launch. Business Insider has contacted Facebook and a number of publishers to check the veracity of the New York Times piece. This article will be updated when responses are received. SEE ALSO: Pinterest Is Tooling Up To Act A Lot More Like Facebook Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Good morning! Here's what everyone will be talking about today:
10 Things In Advertising You Need To Know This Morning | ||
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Get your Monday off to a flying start with the 10 most important stories you need to know from the advertising world today. 1. Facebook is proposing digital publishers send their articles to the social network to publish direct to its mobile app. The New York Times reports that Facebook could offer an ad revenue share. 2. WPP media group GroupM and Unilever are pushing publishers for more proof that their video ads are being seen, according to the WSJ’s CMO. The two companies are demanding at least 50% of the video is played while in view; that the video’s sound must be on; and that the user has pressed play, rather than an auto-start. 3. Metro Trains, creators of the serially-awarded “Dumb Ways To Die” campaign, has launched a follow-up game, Mumbrella reports. In "Dumb Ways To Die 2: The Games," players act as characters that featured in the original musical ad to compete at various sports. 4. AdAge has some advice for brands wondering how to react to #Gamergate: don’t. “You cannot win. This is a lose-lose situation,” one advertiser told the trade title. 5. Marketing Magazine UK has put together its top 15 most-shared scary ads just in time for Halloween. Spots include the Telekinetic Carrie-esque coffee shop surprise and Dirt Devil’s “Exorcist” ad. 6. Adweek explores the massive marketing campaign behind Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The advertising push, which is estimated to cost as much as $100 million, features actor Kevin Spacey. 7. Publishers are flocking to create explainer videos, Digiday writes. Publishers including Vox, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, and Mashable are all experimenting with the “comparatively cheap” and high-performing format. 8. Procter & Gamble says it is a quarter of the way through its cull of up to 100 brands, Marketing Week reports. Duracell became the latest casualty last week. 9. The Drum has declared Coca-Cola’s new marketing chief Marcos de Quinto the “pirate king of Twitter.” His Twitter feed — which is entirely in Spanish — varies in content from Coke’s latest projects, the concerts he attends, and Spanish politics. It’s a rarity for in-house marketers to be so prolific on Twitter, or describe themselves as a "pirate," as De Quinto does in his bio. 10. One Google employee explains why working at Google is not over-rated at all, as some people have suggested. Working at Google actually gets better as time goes by, according to software engineer Edgar Due nez-Guzman. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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European Markets Are Sliding | ||
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Major European equities markets opened up early Friday after mostly unsurprising stress test results from the European Central Bank, but they've all now dropped into the red. Here's the scorecard, so far: France's CAC 40 is down 0.41% Spain's IBEX is down 1.09% Italy's FTSE MIB is down 1.17% Britain's FTSE 100 is down 0.32% Germany's DAX is down 0.50% Asian markets closed mixed. The Nikkei closed up 0.63%. The Hang Seng closed down 0.68%. US futures are have also now falled into negative territory. The Dow is down 10 points and the S&P is down 2.75 points. The Ifo institute's index of German business confidence might take some of the credit for the sudden slide. It's just dropped to the lowest level since 2012, coming in below analyst expectations. Later, from the US, at 9:45 a.m ET Markit’s services PMI is out, with analysts expecting a reading of 58. That’s slightly down from last month but still way above the neutral 50 level. September’s figures for pending home sales will be out at 10 a.m. ET. SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Facebook Is Asking Publishers To Post Their Articles Direct To Its Mobile App (FB) | ||
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Facebook is proposing a revenue share deal with publishers that could see newspapers, magazines, and websites send their articles for the social network to host direct on its mobile app, the New York Times reports. Facebook has recent embarked on a “listening tour” with publishers, discussing better ways they can collaborate, particularly when it comes to mobile, the article details. Facebook, whose mobile app is opened up by 654 million users daily, has honed its mobile offering to load up content quickly. Publisher websites, on the other hand, can be clunky and are often slowed by the amount of advertising they host, where a number of auctions take place in a matter of milliseconds to determine the highest bidder for an ad spot. Facebook hopes to provide publishers with a quick fix to that issue and make content consumption on mobile more seamless. The direct-to-Facebook publishing approach is just one of the options on the table. The idea is that any advertising revenue would be shared (although it’s not yet clear what the split would be.) The suggestion is likely to send a “cold, dark chill” down the spines of publishers, the New York Times, writes. Not only does it signal Facebook’s growing influence over the media — it is the principal source of referral traffic to the majority of digital publishers — but signing up to a content share agreement would no doubt also mean that they would be signing away the rights to data about how their readers consume their content. However, with its 1.3 billion users worldwide, and a finely-tuned algorithm that attempts to surface only the most interesting and relevant content to users, it is important for publishers to maintain an amicable relationship with Facebook — even if many would prefer it was kept at arm’s length. Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox told The New York Times: “We are at the very beginning of a conversation and it’s very important that we get this right. Because we play an increasingly important role in how people discover the news that they read every day, we feel a responsibility to work with publishers to come up with as good an experience as we can for consumers. And we want and need that to be a good experience for publishers as well.” This new suggestion for mobile content would not be the first time Facebook has asked publishers to form content partnerships. In 2011, a number of publishers including The Guardian, The Washington Post, Business Insider and The Independent partnered with Facebook to create “Social Reader” apps to allow users to consume and share content in the Facebook environment. However, in 2012 the majority of those publishers began to phase out those apps as although many of them proved extremely popular, the majority of the engagement was happening only on the Facebook platform, without much click-through to the publishers’ own sites (where they can generate revenue.). In some cases it was even cannibalizing traffic to publishers' own sites. The Social Reader App also generated what many users deemed as excessive updates about what readers were reading, clunking up the News Feed. Earlier this year Facebook also launched standalone app Paper, its answer to news aggregation apps like Feedly and Flipboard. However, its popularity tanked soon after launch. Business Insider has contacted Facebook and a number of publishers to check the veracity of the New York Times piece. This article will be updated when responses are received. SEE ALSO: Pinterest Is Tooling Up To Act A Lot More Like Facebook Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Brazilian Stocks Are Getting Decimated | ||
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Global investors are selling off Brazilian equities this morning, after Dilma Rousseff was narrowly re-elected as the country's president Sunday. Markets were hoping for a win from pro-business candidate Aecio Neves, and are expressing their disappointment this morning. In Frankfurt, part-nationalized Brazilian energy giant Petroleo Brasiliero is down 10.78%. And in Paris, the Lyxor ETF Brazil, an exchange traded fund that tracks the country’s Ibovespa index of equities, is down 9.42%. It's the same story across the world. The main ETF tracking Brazil in Japan opened down more than 7%. And according to Andres Adabia at Pantheon Macroeconomics, it's likely to get worse before it gets better: "Over the last four years, the Ibovespa has fallen close to a third, and it is down slightly this year-to-date. The real has weakened 33% since Ms. Rousseff took power, and markets—correctly, in our view—see few signs of hope for a turnaround. We doubt Ms. Rousseff will begin the significant shift to a more market-oriented economy that the country needs. The economy will continue in its slow growth, high inflation, mode for the foreseeable future. We therefore expect markets to remain under pressure." SEE ALSO: Wall Street Will Not Be Kind To Brazil Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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It's Getting Worse In Germany: Confidence Falls To A 22-Month Low | ||
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German business confidence has fallen to its lowest point since August 2012, according to the latest IFO Business Climate Index. The October survey showed confidence slipping to 103.2 this month, missing analyst forecasts for 104.3 and below the 104.7 figure in September.
The decline will compound fears over the health of Europe's largest economy after German government cut the country's economic growth forecast to 1.2% from 1.8% and 2015 forecast to 1.3% from 2% earlier this month. German industry is already showing signs of weakness after seeing a 4% drop in production between July and August. The concern is that weakening sentiment is a sign of further weakness to come for Europe's powerhouse economy, which could add to pressure on policymakers with the Eurozone already battling the threat of deflation. As a note from Pantheon Macro suggests: The headline German business confidence index continues to point to subdued growth ahead for the industrial sector in the euro area’s largest economy, with the decline in both the headline and expectations reinforcing the downtrend that began in April...The overall message from the IFO survey is one of weak growth ahead, and elevated downside risks for growth in the fourth quarter.
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Demand In Europe Is the Elephant In The Room | ||
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The results of the eurozone's stress tests released on Sunday are pretty bullish. Most of the 130 banks reviewed were relatively healthy, based on the ECB's assessment. Twenty-five banks had a capital shortfall prior to the end of December, when the assessment concluded, but only 13 still need raise more money. Those banks have to come up with a total of €9.5 billion ($12.9 billion), which is basically peanuts in terms of the whole system: The 130 banks in assessment account for €22 trillion ($27.9 trillion) in assets. But there is one colossal elephant in the room that the European Central Bank's comprehensive assessment did not look at — that's because it is out of their hands. Here's the real problem with the major European banks, in one graph:
It is easy to see the issue: Banks are not lending enough. But if very few of the eurozone banks are distressed, and the so-called problem ones only need to raise a small of amount capital to be in good shape, then shouldn't those lending figures bounce back pretty soon? This all leads us to the real issue, which does not have to do with the banking system, but with demand for credit. Here's what analysts had to say Monday morning:
Raj Badiani at IHS Global Insight sums it up nicely: “The economy remains enveloped by downturn characteristics, choking of the demand for credit." The eurozone's banks are undoubtedly damaged, and the continent would benefit from a more unified financial system. But consumer confidence, household spending, business investment, and most other measures of economic health have struggled to return pre-crisis levels in the eurozone, even six years after the financial crisis.
Making sure the eurozone's financial system is in better order than it has been — and more suited to a monetary union — are worthy goals. But it's a mistake to pretend it's going to solve a problem that is beyond the remit of financial regulators. SEE ALSO: 25 Banks Just Failed Europe's Biggest Ever Health Tests Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things In Tech You Need To Know Today (GOOG, AAPL, TWTR, MSFT) | ||
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1. Google CEO Larry Page is taking a step back from the company to focus on "the bigger picture." Sundar Pichai will now lead all of Google's core products. 2. CVS and Rite Aid stores have blocked Apple Pay. They're asking customers to use their credit cards instead of the new NFC payment system. 3. Twitter agreed to acquire the domain and archive of troubled photo-sharing service TwitPic. It was hours away from deleting all of the photos. 4. Anonymous secret-sharing app Whisper has placed its editorial team on leave following an investigation by the Guardian. The newspaper claimed that the app was tracking specific users, an accusation that the company denies. 5. Google is preparing to roll out its new "Lollipop" update. Some phones have already been confirmed to support the new software. SPONSORED BY bRealTime, a division of CPXi 6. Thousands of Hungarians are protesting over a new tax on internet data. They say that it will stop some people having access to the internet. 7. Apple designer Marc Newson has designed a shotgun. It's a 12-gauge side-by-side design with ornate engravings. 8. Microsoft has cut the Nokia name from its branding. New phones will be called "Lumia" rather than "Nokia." 9. eSports commentator Ryan Wyatt will become the head of YouTube's gaming division. Google previously considered buying games streaming site Twitch. 10. iPhone pre-orders in South Korea are reportedly far higher than orders for the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The iPhone launches in South Korea on October 31. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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German business confidence index Ifo falls in October | ||
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Frankfurt (AFP) - Germany's Ifo business confidence indicator fell in October, data showed on Tuesday, as the outlook for Europe's biggest economy continues to cloud over. The Ifo economic institute's closely watched business climate index fell to 103.2 points in October from 104.7 points in September, the think-tank said in a statement. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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