Facebook: "More collaboration, not competition, with media"

PERUGIA  - Facebook is encroaching on the news industry: the content appearing on the pages of the more than 1.3 billion users worldwide is increasingly personalized and optimized, based on their interests and activities on the social network. Behind the apparently random flow of videos, news and comments we see when we enter our Facebook newsfeed lies a meticulous technologic research and positioning strategy. But as this is in large part content taken from media publications large and small around the world, the Menlo Park company is equipping itself to establish partnerships and to engage with those who produce this content. And, unsurprisingly, it is looking for ways to profit from this. Andrew Mitchell, Director of News & Media partnerships at Facebook, spoke about this at the recent International Journalism Festival in Perugia. He used to work for media outlets, is familiar with both worlds and wants to make them work together. We met him on the occasion of the conference.
 
There have been rumors all over the press about an agreement between Facebook and some of the main traditional and digital media to produce contents directly on the FB platform, without inserting a link forwarding to the native website. Can you explain what is this about?
"Our challenge today is to overcome the difficulties of mobile consumption. Using some contents through external links happens with unacceptable slowness, an average 8-second delay. Therefore, we are looking for a way to make the experience sustainable, to do what it is right for Facebook, for the publishers (partners more broadly, but in this case for publishers), for users. Because if it's not good for Facebook, it is not sustainable. If it is not good for publishers, they won't publish their content. And if it is not good for users, all this is useless. From the product perspective, we are trying to solve the problem, and give people access to the product they want."
 
One type of content which Facebook is betting on more and more is video. There is almost the impression that you are giving a priority to this type of content compared to others. Is this because they are more profitable?
"Our Products Team created a pretty magical experience with the autoplay native video feature in the newsfeed of the page with native videos. What we have done is to create personalized content: every time you log on, we create a personalized feed, based on your activity on the social network. Content type is one of the indicators that we look at to personalize your feed, and based on this, we offer more contents like these. So people interested in seeing videos, will see more videos in their feed. People like the video product experience that we have created and so they are consuming more of that. Again, if we prioritized video, and they didn’t want video, Facebook wouldn’t be a valuable product."
 
But what happens to the advertising media that used to be inserted into videos?
"The problem of monetization is very complicated; we are approaching it very methodically. Last year we did a test with the National Football League (editor's note: a  Verizon - Facebook  -  NFL partnership in which the NFL put videos on Facebook, Verizon paid for the advertising and NFL and FB shared revenues). It was a test for us to figure out what worked and what did not, and in the coming months you’ll see us doing other tests on how we can help partners monetize video. But aside from advertising, there are other forms of value for publishers: you have control over what you publish, you gain in terms of the Facebook Pages likes; the content is pushed forward. So it is up to publishers to decide what it is best for them."
 
Facebook now has a dedicated team to work with journalists. Can you explain how is it structured and how it works?
"We hired social media pioneer Liz Henron to oversee that team, a journalist from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The goal is to work with journalists to make them better at using Facebook. The first objective is to improve their personal presence on Facebook. How can they make sure their content is discovered, and how can they find an authentic voice on Facebook. As far as content finding is concerned, we made an arrangement with Storyful, the FB Newswire, that lets you find information content created by users that media can use, share, embed. It was launched about a year ago and it has offered many interesting ideas on stories that otherwise would not have been told. We are working to improve the tools to share and embed contents in the media platforms, but it has started well."
 
What it is interesting about Newswire is that it gives credit to the creators of the contents, in a way indicating to reporters that the content is not available for publication without permission. It is something Storyful has focused heavily on. Are you working on this?
"It is not up to us to tell reporters how to use the content, they have to use what they find on social media responsibly."
     
You come from a journalistic environment. What are the main differences that you have found working at Facebook, in terms of attitude, values and mentality? And what would you recommend the most to your former colleagues?
"What I like about the FB culture, that it is different from traditional media, is the spirit of innovation: we have great ideas and we test them. As in the case of the test with NFL, we did not wait for it to be perfect, we tried it. Traditional media are improving in this way. There is research and innovation in many newsrooms, but there are still some trying to cling to what they have instead of experiencing the good things they can get in this new and exciting world."
 
In many cases it is a survival instinct. There is still a strong dose of skepticism towards the world of social media...
"We know that on average 20% of access to the media comes from Facebook and we want to be a valued partner. So we are interested in having feedback from media companies about our products. In June last year in New York we did a series of focus groups with partners to see what types of products can be more useful and, based on their input, we created four new products (editor's note: Mr. Mitchell presented details about these new features during his keynote speech at the Festival, see video below). We have hired journalists because they have a unique eye for what can work. And we are working on the technical aspect, with Facebook developers and designers .”
 
Do you consider Facebook to be the ultimate information platform? That is, in the future, if you want to be informed you will have to be on Facebook?
"It's a great opportunity to help people to find the content they are most interested in. Helping people to find information, helping publishers to find people interested in their content: this is our goal and it is an extraordinary opportunity for everybody. And, certainly, there is much we can do together."
 
There is a lot of talk about Facebook's algorithms and the increasingly powerful role social network is playing in setting the agenda. How can we ensure that there is full transparency in the way news is presented and distributed?
"There are lots of generalizations about how streams of news are created on FB. We do not define the news agenda, it is all based on the activity of people. We create 1.4 billion news feeds, constantly, and they are all different. If you and I had exactly the same profile page, our feeds would be totally different from each other because they are based on our activities, our interests, what we comment upon, and what our closest friends search, share and comment. We analyze every detail of every piece of content that is shared on FB to create a highly customized feed."
 
For journalists and the media Facebook pages are increasingly places in which to build a community,  encourage dialogue on their contents and receive feedback. But it is also very difficult to manage such pages, given that sometimes very controversial hate speech is posted, especially in comments. What is the best way to deal with this?                                                                       
"We created a product called Facebook Mentions: its an app specifically for public voices to create content and understand what is trending on Facebook, particularly about them. People with a public profile found publishing was not a great experience for them. We’ve got great feedback. Being successful on FB is about being authentic and having dialogue with people. FB is, first and foremost, a platform where people connect with people. We have seen a lot of journalists diving into comments on their site and people love that. We also rank comments, so that comments that don’t get engage with are downgraded."

(Translated from Italian by Kay Wallace)