With all the turf Facebook is now chewing up in the news aggregation/video/origination space, I sometimes wonder why it waited so long to really get into it.
In a short while--less
than two years---it’s changed, if not the landscape then certainly the mind-set as more news organizations decide it’s imperative to showcase their content on Facebook and spread it around
to Snapchat and Twitter and everyplace else, too.
The latest Facebook wrinkle, reports
Financial Times.com is Notify, a new app with content alerts from dozens of media partners including, heavyweights such as Vogue, The Washington Post and CBS. It seems to be a
cousin to Facebook’s Instant Articles which now shoves out thousands of stories a day.
The standalone app, well, that’s something more daring,it seems. FT.com says
feature content from a pretty wide variety of news, content and video sites.
It joins a host of other news aggregation ideas from Twitter, Snapchat and Google, all former around the
idea that the home for news and news-like content is mobile and the mode is very quick and eclectic.
News and video news sites are racing to rethink their Websites. Maybe,
they’re destined to become the locale for in-depth reports like, in video, Vice and The New York Times are doing smartly. The idea of visiting a news Web site seems kind of
clunky, like buying a newspaper is to many.
As the Internet always seems to teach its users, there’s quick and then there’s quicker. The bulk of news are just headlines you read on
social media sites, and scroll on by.
HOWARD STERN WATCH: I have been pre-trend on Howard Stern. I haven’t cared what would happen to him for years, bordering
on forever.
But once again, with his Sirius XM contract about to expire and his Dire Threat machine working in overdrive, his loyal fans wonder where he’ll end up next.
On CNBC yesterday, his loyalest fan, Mel Karmazin, the former Infinity Broadcasting chief, former CBS CEO and former Sirius CEO who has stroked (and employed) Stern for years, floated an
idea.
"Howard could also do something, arguably a la Netflix-type," Karmazin
speculated, "It's original content. He does the video ... [and] it could be a TV show that could be available worldwide."
Stern also owns his entire 30-year library of radio
shows, which Karmazin speculated in a script that Stern himself might have written, could be a big draw at Apple’s music streaming service, along with all the new Stern material. I can barely
contain myself.
Now that Karmazin isn’t at Sirius XM anymore, he is intended to come off as just an interested, but distant partner. He told CNBC he hopes Stern re-ups with the
radio service. For years, Stern hasn’t said anything bad about Mel and vice versa, and it’s nice to know that beautiful, profitable relationship continues.
pj@mediapost.com