Changes To Facebook's Algorithm Have Claimed Their First Casualty
Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
Many have cited how dangerous it is to have so much power in the hands of one company such as Facebook.
We now learned that power cost 100 people their jobs simply through the change in an algorithm.
Six weeks ago, Facebook announced a change to the news feed algorithm. Now, a small publisher called Little Things is out of business after watching the organic web traffic drop 75% due to the Facebook change.
Zuckerberg said last month this change is necessary because people prefer their feeds filled with more personalized stuff than just news. Interesting considering the month long battle between Facebook and Democratic lawmakers over Facebook's failure to stop the Russian troll farm that was just indicted by Robert Mueller.
For the media industry, this is only the first of what is expected to be many fallouts from the change in Facebook's algorithm. Dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller publishers face a similar fate as Little Things. Since this company was purely self-funded, it was a prime target when the change was made.
LittleThings had other factors working against it. Unlike a lot of distributed media upstarts that chased audiences on platforms using VC money, LittleThings was self-funded, which meant there wasn't a big cushion when things went south. It largely built its business on programmatic advertising, but then pivoted to more lucrative direct sales.
LittleThings' inspirational stories were a safe haven for advertisers that were increasingly getting spooked by the contentious news climate, but there was a downside there, too. "The brand safety was a huge selling point for us, but the flip is, our audience is women over 30 in middle America, and they're not sexy," Tibbits said. The company made some inroads, getting buys from blue-chip advertisers including Procter & Gamble and eBay, but it wasn't enough, and the first quarter of the year is typically slow for advertising.
Other publishers are looking to Google and Twitter to make up for what they're losing from Facebook, but for LittleThings, there was nowhere else to go. LittleThings' comScore traffic had declined to 40 million from 58 million last May, according to Tibbits.
"For our audience, there's not another platform right now," she said. "There are 100 great, talented people who were here and doing content that resonated with an audience that's just harder to find right now."
Companies will now have to look to Google and Twitter to try and fill in the gap.
Non-adapted content found at zerohedge.com: Source
This isn't anything new. Who knows how many companies went out of business when google changed their search algorithms, or when Amazon moved into other ventures besides selling books?
This will continuously be an issue as long as people still use others as a means of distribution. The exact same thing could potentially happen here on Steemit, even if it is decentralized. Steemit could always move to change the "trending" or "hot" page algorithms and people who have been able to make a good living that way would have to adapt.
I honestly don't think that Facebook did anything wrong here. Don't like the way they do things? Find a different outlet.
Algorithms, algorithms, algorithms. I miss Yahoo's human curated search results. They actually had some good results compared to Google's early days.
Seems like that's going to happen when communities and the new fork come out.
And I agree, Facebook is pivoting, so how does that turn into a sob story about a company that clearly created content that was solely a vehicle to sell ads? Those people will go on to create other wrappers for shillsville level ads and content.
Informative post.Thanks for sharing it
I guess facebook has is now a huge cooporate that will do as it pleases, Mark pretends he cares about people but he doesn't care about anyone he is just like any other billioneir that gives a funcy speach and so the $ are rolling in as usual then that's all that matters to him. The poeple who lost their jobs were just a btw to him.
Facewhat is a perfect example of regulated platform. The final nail in the coffin came in recently as well, when Facebook said it would prioritize users posts in to improve engagement on its platform. Facebook also being in crisis over its failure to control spread of fake news and propaganda on of its platform. If they continue with these kind of regulations and drastic changes it’s only matter of time when other companies start to plan for safety. For example some alternative where other publishers would be looking to Google, Twitter or Steemit to make up for what they’re losing from Facebook.
Little Things is among the many companies that are falling out of business. The thing is many companies have been relying on facebook to generate traffic. People's news feeds had been dominated by professionally made content from brands, businesses and media. And now facebook's change in the algorithm is all falling back on them.
Zuckerburg is targetting time users take on facebook to be time well spent even though users could be spending less time on facebook. He is choosing to prioritize content from friends,family and groups over public content like posts from the businesses, brands and media.
But all is not lost yet.. businesses should just post content that creates interactions and sparks conversations between users like including questions in posts, writing about topics that users are sure to have an opinion on. This content will reach customers as users will see facebook posts if their family and friends are commenting on it.
Eric Owens, a software engineer said that :
Their goal with News Feed is to show everyone the right content at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them.
Feedback that there are some instances where a post from a friend or a Page we are connected to is only interesting at a specific moment, for example when we are both watching the same sports game, or talking about the season premiere of a popular TV show. There are also times when a post that is a day or two old may not be relevant to us anymore. Their latest update to News Feed ranking looks at two new factors to determine if a story is more important in the moment than other types of updates.
Use ad blockers, don't care
Your post is so wildly inappropriate to the topic that it reads like a cry for "help me, I'm so desperate for attention that I'm willing to all but publicly call myself a Nazi in order to get it!"
Given the news, such a loud and consistent cry for mental health intervention might not be ignored as easily as in the past.
you're a trolling Turd, you know that don't you ?
Looking forward to the day that smile is wiped-off Zuckerkike's smug little face.
Mark Zuckerberg just realized that monetizing this stupid site meant to be a site where people share pictures is retarded idea. It only went up in value becuase of stupid advertising fees that people exploited. Once again we have something that was extremely simple being turned into a way to manipulate people with advertisments. Im calling out netflix google and facebook for being massive scams thus creating a cratering of the stock market and massive losses to anybody who depends on them.
Facebook, like many other businesses, started really strong, but seems to be leaving it's customer behind. I see similarities with Youtube. They think they're too big to fail at this point, but they haven't seen steemit or similar coming.
In order to disrupt something as big as FB or YT you need something revolutionary, which is exactly what steemit is. It's revolutionary in the facts of no true centralized power and the real kicker of paying everyone equally, no limit on number of views or likes or any of that BS.
Sure steemit has it's own issues right now, that's why it says beta in the top left.
It seems I am on the decentralization mantra of late but here is another example of why it is so needed.
Zuckerberg has way too much power. Decentralized blockchains are the way to break this. It is too late for Little Things but other content creators should join the steem blockchain. It is not only a game changer but a salvation.
We see this same idea about Google. They manipulate their searches so that the results are really mostly paid advertisements.
Zuckerberg is a humanitarian who cares little about humanity. In my view, it is all lip service. As long has he gets his wealth and his face on the news he is happy. All his "charitable" initiatives are all about money...