Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has announced a new co-operation with Storyful to create a page of real time news that will rival Twitter and Reddits’ stranglehold on live commentary of breaking news.
The page called FB Newswire is going to be open to the general public, but is primarily focused on providing journalists and editors around the world with a new real time tool. The page will show original status updates, photos and videos that are publicly posted by Facebook users.
Storyful is a well respected social news verification company owned by News Corp that is also the owner of the Wall Street Journal. Each update that is posted on the page in real time will be checked and verified by the soon to be very busy staff at Storyful . There will be a link from any public post used that tracks back to that users Facebook page, and if, for any reason the user deletes it, then the post will also be removed from FB Newswire.
Andy Mitchell, the director of news and global media partnerships for Facebook stated that the “Goal is that Newswire will be an invaluable tool for journalists, helping them to tell richer, more engaging stories using public content from Facebook.” The plan is for FB Newswire to carry not only news updates but also entertainment and weather posts from around the world.
The only issue that may arise is that many Facebook users are unclear on the difference between private and public posts even though Facebook has been making strenuous efforts recently to highlight to its users what the differences are. Only time will tell if that effort has been successful.
