Facebook stops with ‘Trending’ section
Facebook announces the removal of the Trending component, in order to create room for new ways to bring news. Trending started in 2014. Its purpose was to inform users about the current popular news items.
Unfortunately, Trending is not a resounding success. Less than 1.5% of the clicks to news platforms comes from Trending. Moreover, the tool was only available in five countries, including the United States and Great Britain.
In other news
Still, Facebook does not intend to resign when it comes to news. There is now a search for new ways to market news via Facebook. It is important here to respond to the needs of users. For example, people watch the news mainly on the smartphone and through videos. That’s why Facebook is going to experiment with Watch, a component where people can follow the news via video. Another idea from Facebook is to give news publishers the opportunity to stick a ‘breaking news’ label on an article. And we are not there yet. Facebook is testing another idea: Today In. This way, users are provided with important local news by local news publishers.
Nice and nice new ideas, but the news must of course be reliable and of good quality. Facebook assures us that we do not have to be afraid of Fake news . The question is whether and how the control of Facebook on Fake news is going to bear fruit.