After recently announcing plans to expand Facebook News internationally, Facebook has said the feature will now launch in the UK within January 2021.
Due to the success of Facebook News in the US, Facebook recently announced it’s accelerating its plans to expand the feature internationally. The feature has been available in the US for a year or so, opening a new chapter in its relationship with publishers.
Facebook News, a personalized destination for news within the app, helps publishers reach new audiences, with testing in the US showing that “over 95% of the traffic delivered to publishers is incremental to the traffic they already get from News Feed.”
Related | Facebook News Is Expanding To Multiple New Markets
As part of its first international expansion of Facebook News, Facebook says that within the next six months to a year it will be available in multiple countries – with the UK, Germany, France, India, and Brazil being considered initially. As per an announcement this week, we now know that it will first make an appearance in the UK at the beginning of 2021.
In the UK, as in each other country, Facebook says it will “pay news publishers to ensure their content is available in the new product.”
The first group of publishers to be featured in Facebook News in the UK includes Archant, Conde Nast, The Economist, ESI Media, Guardian Media Group, Hearst, Iliffe, JPI Media, Midland News Association, Reach, STV, and others.
These publishers own some of the UK’s best known national and local news brands, such as The Economist, The Guardian, The Independent, The London Evening Standard, Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News, The Mirror, The Scotsman, STV, and the Yorkshire Post.
Furthermore, Facebook News will also include content from lifestyle brands like Red, Harpers, Cosmopolitan, Wired, GQ, Glamour, Vogue, and Tatler.
Other partners are expected to join before launch.
Facebook News is a mix of both curated and personalized top stories, delivering “informative, reliable, and relevant news” to readers. Users can find the day’s top headlines and stories right next to news personalized to their interests.
“During major news cycles, Facebook News provides timely news digests, highlighting original and authoritative reporting on pressing topics,” explains Jesper Doub, Director for News Partnerships at Facebook. “Facebook News also helps people discover new topics and stories based on the news they read, share, and follow.”
In conjunction with the UK launch of Facebook News, Facebook will also be extending its Community News Project.
For the last two years, Facebook has trained 80 journalists across the UK to cover communities that are traditionally underserved by news media. This was done with help from Facebook’s $6M/£4.5M Community News Project (CNP), which is now being extended with an additional $3M/£2.25M to support local journalism.
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