Instant articles? Facebook as the new face of breaking news? Tough to swallow in the halls of old-school print media, but true nonetheless.
The revolution in news delivery continued apace this past week with word that publishers from such highly respected news organizations as the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian and National Geographic will be providing quick-loading “instant articles” hosted on Facebook servers and available via users’ news feeds.
The stories, which come with the originating publication’s logo and “follow” buttons to subscribe to their Facebook pages, are being touted as a new publishing format.
It remains to be seen how Facebook’s increasing leverage as a distributor of news and information will affect the quality and integrity of journalism that has already been eroded on numerous fronts. But for now, the publishers are in the glass-half-full camp: an exciting experiment, some say. More importantly, for bottom-liners, that experiment opens up another stream of badly needed revenue in the 21st century Internet reality in which content is “free” and routinely lifted from highly leveraged news organizations by freeloading freebooters who fob it off as their own.
As to what kind of news will be delivered via your social media of choice, the week just gone offers a full range of the stuff.
From overinflated prominence afforded under-inflated footballs to modest proposals to have Apple bailout Greece, the American tech colossus having all those billions in cash just lying around collecting decimal dust, according to the article’s author. Leonid Bershidsky points out that the Apple over Athens idea springs from an investor’s question posed to CEO Tim Cook at a 2012 Apple general meeting about whether the company had considered using its multibillion-dollar cash stash to acquire the financially-challenged nation.
But no. Not top of mind for Apple investments, it appears, even though all that retsina and souvlaki make for a tempting proposal.
Elsewhere on the too-much-cash-in-hand front, Picasso’s “Les femmes d'Alger” was sold at auction for US$179.3 million as the ranks of the mega-rich continue to multiply.
The ranks of the rapidly aging, meanwhile, are also growing as documented by the U.S. Census during Older Americans Month. Among the stats commemorating elderliness: 2.6 million – the projected number of baby boomers that will still be hanging on in 2060, at which time the youngest will be 96 years old. No doubt still draining pension funds and likely still occupying jobs that younger generations covet.
One of the biggest revelations, however, this past week: Canadians now have shorter attention spans than goldfish.
Blame mobile devices and always-on information feeds, according to the Microsoft Corp. study.
But who measured goldfish attention spans and how is anyone’s guess.
Not to worry. The answer will doubtless be delivered via Facebook.
Instantly.
