Thought of the Week (Sat 16, Feb)
What big challenge do News Agencies face TODAY? One is that they have issues with their model for consumers online. How do customers consume news online. As News Agencies had to embrace the online world and let go of a total print world, they had to come up with "Models" as to how a consumer ("me") would pay for online content. For instance, one News Agency in Ireland sends me an email weekly stating that i can pay €1 a week for my news paper to be delivered to my mobile (viewable in mobile format) and that is, in their minds, the way the model should be. A way that this fair for both them and me. Well I disagree. I do not want to pay €1 a week for a newspaper to be sent to my phone, I would rather buy a print if i was to accept that way of consuming content.
What big challenges does Facebook face TODAY? One is that disinformation spreads on their platform all too easy. It is not difficult to create an account that is not actually verified to be the actual person who is behind the keyboard managing that account. And with some simple scripts and hacking techniques, it is becoming more too common for automated "clicks" of the "Likes" for an article are automated, resulting in those articles bubbling to the surface of relevance - which we can all agree is not what we want to see and plays well in to mainstream disinformation campaigns. So what does all this mean for Facebook, well it results in less users wanting to consume content on their site because they are now waking up to the fact that they don't TRUST the content. Who is the author? Are they real?
So what big opportunity could a News Agency and Facebook take advantage of today? One simple idea would be that we move the News Agencies on Facebook where their writers can write content on a platform that has access to billions of users. When someone is consuming that writers content, the Ad agencies in the background are generating the revenue so "I" do not have to pay the €1 a week. The News Agency now have their revenue stream.
But how do we make sure this content is TRUSTED. Well, that is the opportunity for Facebook to add a validation to a user. The more a user has to be validate their account, the more Facebook recognises them as a valid user. We had this issue with LinkedIn and it was mostly solved with Premium Accounts idea. Similarly Twitter try to ensure an Account is Real. There are many things you can do to ensure a writer is who-they-say-they-are. That is just technical challenges that Facebook could easily implement. What is more important is that the voice of those writers/journalists could be more believable and bubble up to the surface of relevance; and guess what ... sink the disinformation actors :)
Bring the two of those ideas together and you might just get me to re-enable my Facebook account!
(These are my personal thoughts and do reflect the views or thoughts of my employer)