Good afternoon,
Wednesday wasn’t a great day for Facebook.
The social media site, now struggling with an array of controversies, is known to have outages from time to time – usually for brief periods. The outages seemed to be clustered on the coasts and portions of Europe and South America.
Reasons remain unclear, although it is worth noting that Facebook used rival platform Twitter to take note of the problem and to state that the reason for the disruption was not a cyber-attack from a criminal or a sketchy foreign government.
Facebook, in other words, appeared to have problems posting its own content.
Whatever the case, the social media system was crippled for hours, with some users unable to post content ranging from puppy pics to story links.
Delaware Business Now uploads links to our stories to our Facebook page. Some readers prefer accessing via Facebook. At times, they read the headline and make a quick comment without actually looking at the story.
We prefer other platforms, including this newsletter and our website.
Slight changes in algorithms can sharply cut timeline visibility for smaller websites. At its core, Facebook is a worldwide advertising platform with no interest in a specific area.
Over the past couple of years, Delaware Business Now has worked to reduce our reliance on Facebook.
That effort paid off. Despite an inability to post content for several hours, traffic proved to be strong on a busy news day.
A few hundred extra page views via Facebook would have been nice, but thanks to our loyal readers, we could live without it, even though it would have been great to see some puppy pics. Folks wintering in Florida do not need to pass along alligator shots.
If this newsletter was passed along and you like what you read, sign up here to get your own daily Email. If you have any comments pro or con, or news tips, hit return, attach the item, or type away. – Doug and Sharon Rainey.
