Facebook: Not a Traditional Media Company

[engine]

Mark Zuckerberg in an interview said, “Facebook is a new kind of platform. It’s not a traditional technology company,” and went on to say, “It’s not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it’s used.”

[techcrunch.com...]

Is Facebook a media company, or something different? It's certainly a curator of content, and is a the conduit for other sources of news and information. Is there anything else like it?

[keyplyr]

Let's not overlook FBs ambitions to be an ISP by investments in BSNL Broadband to launch their ISP in India, giving free internet to millions, but maintaining absolute control over what web sites those users have access.

[robzilla]

It's an advertising company with a bunch of hobbies ;-) [webmasterworld.com]

[toidi]

and we feel responsible for how it’s used.

i bet he didn't run this past his lawyers.

[not2easy]

For users it is like a forum on steroids, for advertisers it is captive audience in a walled garden, for MZ it is SimWorld+alphabet's wish list. So no, not a traditional media company.

[thedonald123]

And for publishers it's the walled garden where their users and ad revenue now go. Facebook takes >30% of total online advertising dollars and 1 out of 5 minutes spent online.

Facebook's growth forces Google whose shareholders require increased profits YoY to make massive changes, such as scraping content from publishers, to keep their users in the SERPS where they keep 100% of advertising revenue vs. a max of 30% of Adsense revenue once users click on a link to an external website.

Publishers should at least recognize the enemy.

[keyplyr]

Publishers should at least recognize the enemy

I thought that about most Social Media a few years ago when my traffic started to fall. Took me a while to figure out what to do. I finally decided to get my traffic back. I then saw FB (and the other Social Media) as a gold mine. All the potential customers are there, all grouped together by interests. After I figured out how to harvest that resource, I gained the lost traffic and surpassed it 2X.

[tangor]

This is a cake and eat it too question.

Of course FB is NOT (but it wants to act like one, hence fake news checking etc). Of course it IS (been blamed for the media that derailed a US election).

But more importantly, FB will do all it can to AVOID the media label as that would open a new can of worms, the FCC and all kinds of other difficulties.

We know FB is just a giant website with a forum on steroids, but the rest of the world sees it as a news source, media distro, archive of info, and a phone book to find a plumber to fix that annoying drip under the kitchen sink.

FB wants to be all things EXCEPT a company that will have to answer to the FCC, FEC, and any other EFF'N agencies. :)