Re-building news on Facebook
Re-building news on Facebook
Re-building news on Facebook
Facebook News is a new, dedicated space for news on Facebook. The launch marked an important milestone in the industry, with The New York Times calling it a 'step-change'. Here’s hoping.
Facebook News is a new, dedicated space for news on Facebook. The launch marked an important milestone in the industry, with The New York Times calling it a 'step-change'. Here’s hoping.
Facebook News is a new, dedicated space for news on Facebook. The launch marked an important milestone in the industry, with The New York Times calling it a 'step-change'. Here’s hoping.
- ROLE Product Designer
- YEAR 2017–2020
- COMPANY Facebook
- WITH Jacklyn Laryea, Atif Azam, Radu Dutzan, Eben Levy and others
- ROLE Product Designer
- YEAR 2017–2020
- COMPANY Facebook
- WITH Jacklyn Laryea, Atif Azam, Radu Dutzan, Eben Levy and others
The following shouldn’t be news to anyone: What started as a social network to connect you with your friends and family, has knowingly turned into a primary news source for many Americans and people all over the world. It’s also no secret it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Over the recent years this has led Facebook to invest heavily into various efforts tackling the spread of misinformation, identifying better ways to support the publishing & media industry, and increasing the quality of content on the platform.
Facebook News – launched in late 2019 – is one of many results of listening to and working closely with journalists and publishers over the last 5 years. It’s the latest major milestone towards pushing high-quality journalism, and equally addressing the difficult situation for news rooms all over the country.
The following shouldn’t be news to anyone: What started as a social network to connect you with your friends and family, has knowingly turned into a primary news source for many Americans and people all over the world. It’s also no secret it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Over the recent years this has led Facebook to invest heavily into various efforts tackling the spread of misinformation, identifying better ways to support the publishing & media industry, and increasing the quality of content on the platform.
Facebook News – launched in late 2019 – is one of many results of listening to and working closely with journalists and publishers over the last 5 years. It’s the latest major milestone towards pushing high-quality journalism, and equally addressing the difficult situation for news rooms all over the country.
The way people consume news has dramatically changed over the last decade, and introduced big challenges to the industry.
“It’s no secret that the internet has really disrupted the news business model.”
“It’s no secret that the internet has really disrupted the news business model.”
— Mark Zuckerberg
— Mark Zuckerberg
THE UNIQUE CHALLENGE
How might we offer a high-quality news experience to users that better supports the publishing industry?
With Facebook News, we’re trying to address the seemingly endless number of challenges faced in the recent years. While a lot is going on under the hood, here’s some of the major goals that drove the initial development:
ONE
01
ONE
ONE
Allow better personalization to cater to the many varying needs and interests around news without missing out on the most important stories of the day.
TWO
02
TWO
TWO
Provide stories from a diverse set of trustworthy news sources that accurately capture the zeitgeist.
THREE
03
THREE
THREE
Find sustainable ways to better protect and support high-quality journalism.
Balancing interests & importance
Balancing interests & importance
Balancing interests & importance
Balancing interests & importance
Balancing interests & importance
The product experience aims at providing people more nuanced control over the stories they see to allow them to explore a wider range of their news interests. In addition it highlights the most relevant national stories of the day and hand-picked collections around the biggest national events, curated by a team of journalists. As Campbell Brown, VP of Global News Partnerships put it:
“People want and benefit from personalized experiences on Facebook, but we know there is reporting that transcends individual experience. We want to support both.”
“People want and benefit from personalized experiences on Facebook, but we know there is reporting that transcends individual experience. We want to support both.”
It's probably no surprise that — when you ask people —they'll primarily ask for trazillion ways to customize the experience. Facebook News aims at better capturing all your news interest in a single place, and offers dedicated experiences to deep dive on the topics most important to you, powered by a diverse set of high-quality publications Facebook is partnering with. For the first time, publications are being appropiately compensated for their inclusion and in return provide access to their entire content pool, allowing us to build an even more relevant experience for people using Facebook.
CURATED TOP STORIES & COLLECTIONS
CURATED TOP STORIES & COLLECTIONS
To balance personalization and avoid filter bubbles, Facebook News features a range of curated experiences — powered by our own custom, industry-leading content management tools. People and publishers alike told us that there are stories everyone needs to hear about, independently from their own preferences. To ensure we're capturing those stories accurately and with the best available content, we formed an in-house team of experienced journalists, developed publicly available guidelines and worked closely with them on experiences that allow them to tell those stories in the most informative and educating ways, e.g. enabling true 360° coverage.
DEVELOPING THE BRAND
While you'll surely have somewhat of a headstart, launching a 0 to 1 product at Facebook does not guarantee sure-fire success. To help drive awareness for Facebook News we worked with our in-house creative team to develop the Facebook News brand, which emphasis the modularity around news topics and interests. The illustrations are used in a number of marketing materials, from in-product awareness experiences all the way to actual newspaper ads.
ADDITIONAL FOCUS AREAS
While being involved with the fundamental strategy and experiences mentioned above, I further lead a number of core focus areas of the product, for example…
- Notifications should feel personal, and important. We developed a notification experience that highlights breaking news and stories we think you don't want to miss, prominently featured at the top of our product.
- Facebook News supports live coverage for the most important stories. While making its debut at the democratic debates ahead of the elections in 2020, live videos have been used for a number of news events throughout the year, e.g. coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests, NASA's & SpaceX's Crew Dragon launch or various national & local COVID-19 press briefings.
- Facebook News offers a best in class local news experience, that ensures people can stay up-to-date on the latest updates from all communities they care about – from their current location, to their hometown, to places their friends & family live in.
NEWS DESIGN SYSTEM
Facebook News is powered by our own News Product System and part of many other quality efforts I have also helped oversee. It's built on top of Facebook's existing design system, and introduces new, custom components that allow for more flexibility and are designed around the unique needs of news content, e.g. custom article cards including publisher wordmarks, news specific labeling, a 360° coverage module and topic collections.
On the left: Facebook News in light and dark mode.
Facebook News is powered by our own News Product System and part of many other quality efforts I have also helped oversee. It's built on top of Facebook's existing design system, and introduces new, custom components that allow for more flexibility and are designed around the unique needs of news content, e.g. custom article cards including publisher wordmarks, news specific labeling, a 360° coverage module and topic collections.
On the top: Facebook News in light and dark mode.
Facebook News is powered by our own News Product System and part of many other quality efforts I have also helped oversee. It's built on top of Facebook's existing design system, and introduces new, custom components that allow for more flexibility and are designed around the unique needs of news content, e.g. custom article cards including publisher wordmarks, news specific labeling, a 360° coverage module and topic collections.
On the top: Facebook News in light and dark mode.
THE OUTCOME
Within less than a year, millions of people in the US now catch up on the news through Facebook News every day. For publications across the country the launch marked a highly acclaimed milestone on the path to finding new ways to sustain quality journalism.
The question every new product will have to answer eventually is, will an audience show up for it? Facebook News is no different. After less than a year, Facebook News now has millions of people turning to the product every day to check out the most important stories of the day and get caught up on all their personal interests.
"The Facebook decision to finance journalism is a powerful precedent that will echo around editorial departments."
— Robert Thomson, News Corp CEO
— Robert Thomson, News Corp CEO
With Facebook News, we have built a new foundation for the long-term support of high-quality journalism in the US and hopefully soon around the world. The product takes an important leap and — by paying publications for providing access to all their content — set an important precedence, that hopefully inspires other aggregators and companies to follow, ultimately resulting in a new, sustainable ecosystem for publishers.
FIRESIDE CHAT
See highlights of Mark talking to News Corp CEO Robert Thomson about the critical role of journalism and Facebook's commitment to help news organizations build sustainable business models in today's digital age. This live fireside chat was part of our launch in October 2019.
Watch the whole video here.
And in case you’d like to continue reading about Facebook News, here’s some coverage touching on the key themes:
— The New York Times
— The Atlantic
— The VERGE
— YAHOO FINANCE