Meta rethinks partnerships with newspapers

Mark Zuckerberg, leader of social networks with Meta, is known for being a decision-maker. After all, part of his good fortune has been knowing how to make the right decisions at the right time. 

This prerogative of his has led him to an important reflection this year. 

Looking at Meta’s accounts, he realized that he had to optimize his resources also in view of the long-awaited Facebook metaverse and therefore had to review his partnerships with newspapers. 

The development of Meta Platform

It will be at the expense of information, not in terms of quality, but in terms of the resources put into the process. 

Partly in response to criticism of having been a major contributor to the collapse of print media sales, the blue social network has long been engaging in large-scale partnerships with a number of newspapers. 

The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have since 2009 engaged in a prolific collaboration for both parties to produce content in the news section of the social app.

All this, however, has taken huge resources out of Facebook’s coffers that Mark believes could be spent more effectively and profitably. 

In the entrepreneur’s mind, the plan is to delegate the information that remains central to the plans to a series of private individuals with short videos, making Meta become a sort of press agency with correspondents all over the world. 

The system would make it possible to be more capillary throughout the territory and also save staggering sums of money with which the social media would keep the print media happy, an objective that has now lost its meaning in view of the overwhelming power of the web. 

Innovation in the content proposed on the various socials

The technique of short videos seems to be the direction taken by all the socials following the boom in recent years of another major player, Tik Tok, which uses precisely this formula. 

YouTube’s Shorts, Instagram’s Reels, stories, etc. are all offspring of the big mothership Tik Tok, which seems to have cannibalized the attention of the new generations and with it the marketing revenue that is vital in this sector. 

Podcasting and information has come to a screeching halt and Zuckerberg has revised the funds directed to the segment.

Investments in live audio that were created to counter competition from Clubhouse and are now no longer a flagship are also decreasing.

The Information also points the spotlight on another important aspect. Ever since former US President Donald Trump was expelled from the Facebook founder’s platforms, the click rate, views and dwell times on news has fallen sharply.

Short videos and Bulletin from content along the lines of Substack seems to be the way forward. Meta’s coffers will benefit with savings running into millions of US dollars, and hopefully, a freer type of information will be forthcoming.

However, not all collaborations with traditional newspapers will be terminated. According to The Information, there will be renewals, but with new deals on the downside.