Facing the Facebook future

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Good morning,

The recent announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a hot topic in media circles and elsewhere.

In summary, Zuckerberg says he wants your Facebook feed to be a place where you share or view news from friends and associates.

Downplayed will be news posts that have become a major headache for the social media site in light of the rise of fake and misleading news.

Problems include old inflammatory stories repackaged as recent happenings, as well as questionable or misleading click-bait headlines and poorly sourced stories.

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Also, one of the site’s  founders has also talked about Facebook addiction.

Facebook has long been an uncomfortable presence in the world of online media.

On one hand, Facebook can get your stories noticed in the vastness of cyberspace.

On the other, the vagaries of its algorithms can lead to a sharp decline in traffic.

Facebook advocates say local news will get preferred. We’ll see.

To its credit, Facebook has been reaching out to online media.

Meanwhile, we have worked to reduce its dependence of Facebook traffic.

This newsletter is a way to build a personal relationship with readers and we’re pleased to report that growth has been strong in recent months.

About 13 percent of our traffic comes directly from social media – mostly from Facebook.

While we would like more people to check out our content, we are comfortable with our place in the universe with or without Facebook. – Doug and Sharon Rainey

 

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