Facebook has announced that it is working rapidly to go international with a news tab feature which will see news publishers get paid for content delivered on the social media platform.
Facebook debuted its News Section in the US last year and has announced plans to roll out the feature globally starting with Brazil, Britain, France, Germany and India.
“In each country, we’ll pay news publishers to ensure their content is available in the new product,” Facebook global news partnerships vice president Campbell Brown said in a blog post.
“We will keep building new products and making global investments to help the news industry build long-lasting business models.”
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According to Brown, Facebook News is off to a “strong start” in the US and has driven a significant amount of traffic to publishers within the six months it has been operating.
“Based on this progress, we are accelerating our plans to expand internationally,” Brown said.
News agencies have seen a decline in revenues following the digital public shift which has affected ads and provided free flow of News and info, something that the News agencies have complained about.
“Innovation is critical to building a sustainable news ecosystem,” Brown said.
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News agencies have had to contend with the availability of Free News online. They have also experienced declining sales of their classic Newspapers and low rates of subscription online.
Recently, Australia imposed new rules forcing Facebook and Google to pay the Media companies for News. Google has been lobbying against the bill proposed by Australia’s competition regulator.
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