Saturday, 2 June 2018
Friday, 1 June 2018
Facebook kills its ‘Trending’ section
Facebook really doesn’t want to be a media company. The social network announced this morning it’s removing its often controversial “Trending” section from its site next week, in order to make way for “future news experiences,” it says. These experiences include things like a dedicated section for news videos on its video hub Facebook Watch, a breaking news label publishers can use on their posts, and a dedicated section called “Today In” which connects people to news and information from local publishers in their city along with updates from local officials and organizations.
Over 80 news publishers are currently testing the “breaking news” label, which allows them to opt to flag their Instant Articles, mobile and web links, and Facebook Live video as breaking news, the company tells us.
Facebook says that the early results from this testing have led to a 4 percent lift in click-through rates, a 7 percent lift in Likes, and an 11 percent lift in shares. The product is still in what Facebook calls “alpha” testing, which indicates it’s very early days for this feature – an alpha test precedes a beta test, which itself is ahead of a public launch.
Meanwhile, the “Today In” feature is in testing in 33 U.S. cities across the U.S.
Facebook says publishers featured in this section are seeing an average of an 8 percent incremental increase in distribution – meaning outbound clicks.
The company didn’t provide a time frame for when Facebook’s news-focused video hub would go live, but said that “soon” 10 to 12 U.S. publishers will be launching news shows in Watch, focused on live coverage of breaking events, daily shows and weekly shows. These efforts will be funded by Facebook itself, the company said. However, the company declined to provide a list of publishers or details on the funding.
The changes arrive at a time when Facebook has been held accountable for allowing the spread of fake news across its network, and it has responded with a host of fake news-fighting features like fact checking, adding publisher context, the addition of related articles, shrinking fake news in the News Feed, and other initiatives.
However, the “Trending” section in particular has been a source of concern ever since the company fired its Trending editors, leaving the selection of stories to its algorithms. And, because algorithms are not perfect, they repeatedly goofed up, allowing fake news stories to spread across the network by highlighting factually inaccurate links that were going viral as well as other inappropriate content.
Even as Facebook addressed the issues around fake news, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stuck to his belief that Facebook itself is not a “media company”– something he’s been saying for years. When recently testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, he insisted again that Facebook is a tech company.
“I consider us to be a technology company because the primary thing that we do is have engineers who write code and build product and services for other people,” he told Congress.
And in nearly the same breath, he then went on to admit that Facebook pays to “help produce content” – as it’s doing now with these new news videos.
It’s unusual for a site that’s used for search, like Facebook, to not manage a trending section. Google offers a whole suite of products around tracking trends, and Twitter offers trends, even down to a local level.
Facebook didn’t announce any plans to bring back Trending, or some version of it in the future.
Trending is being pulled from Facebook next week and it will also remove products and third-party partner integrations that rely on the Trends API, the company said.
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Fortnite is headed to the Nintendo Switch, according to new leaks
The question at this point, really, is which platforms Fortnite isn’t being planned for. The Amazon Echo, maybe? Fitbit? Honestly, those are probably just a matter of time, too, as Epic’s massively popular sandbox survival title steamrolls its way across the industry.
The latest rumor finds Fortnite headed for the Nintendo Switch, just in time for E3, later this month. The rumor arrives through what appears to be a one-two punch of leaks spotted by Eurogamer. First, an image said to be of Nintendo’s E3 booth layout and, more convincingly, the Korean ratings board, which has been something of a game rumor sieve in recent months.
After posting ratings for upcoming versions of Sunset Overdrive and Borderlands, the board has just gifted the gaming world one for Fortnite on Nintendo’s convertible console. The listing puts the title at “12 years old,” courtesy of a “comic expression of a slight level of attack.”
If true, the Switch version would join an iOS port, which arrived in March and one for Android arriving this summer. We’ve reached out to Epic for comment, but I wouldn’t expect to hear much on that front until around, say, the second week of June. Until then, there are no shortage of ways to get your hands on the title.
And Epic, it seems, won’t be hurting for cash. For now, at least.
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What should you consider before moving B2B sales models online?
The world of ecommerce continues to change at lightning speed. According to the Office of National Statistics, in 2017 in Great Britain, 77% of adults had bought goods or services online in the last 12 months.
This trend has spilled over into B2B, with companies finding that their customers now expect the same seamless buying experience that B2C offers – according to Forrester/Internet Retailer B2B Buyer research, 53% of these buyers will make half or more of their work purchases online by 2018, and 74% say buying from a website is just more convenient. It therefore makes perfect sense for organisations to move from an offline-only sales model to a hybrid of offline and online and perhaps online-only.
However, B2B business practices have been built up over many years supported by legacy systems and often out-dated ways of working have become so established that this results in a B2B ecommerce opportunity that remains largely untapped. Taking a B2B business online can be a complex transition for any organisation and requires a thorough review of current practices and a strategic look at business goals. There are key questions merchants need to ask before they begin the transition to move their sales-models online, in order for them to be fully prepared.
- Looking to get online now? These are the best ecommerce platforms of 2018
How important is our website in our sales process?
If your organisation uses highly customised pricing or you are bound by agreements with distributors, you may use your website as a catalogue of rich product content but don’t allow buyers to purchase goods online. These sites can work as search-engine friendly catalogues that generate leads for offline sales but converting to a fully functional B2B online ordering portal is the logical next step.
A fully transactional ecommerce website for customers who have pre-existing relationships with account managers can offer an easy way to re-order and buy and can tailor functionality dependent upon the customer or job role.
Do we know our online pricing strategy?
If your organisation uses a pricing structure that has evolved through organic growth you are likely to have customers who have complex specific pricing agreements. Replicating a unique set of contracts online requires a platform that supports specific product pricing and discount negotiation otherwise you will be severely limited to groups of customers who all have standard pricing.
Is our sales team fully engaged?
Offline sales teams often view ecommerce as a compromised alternative that don’t take into account the skills they have developed over years of hard work. If sales are predominantly order takers, then self-serve websites will be seen to threaten their role. It is therefore important that sales and the ecommerce site works together to empower your sales team and not replace them.
A new eCommerce website can enhance the sales process by giving them the time to nurture their existing relationships, cross sell and up-sell and spend more time looking for new opportunities by removing a lot of the time-intensive, repetitive tasks that can consume a salespersons’ work day.
What other information do we need to consider?
In order to sell effectively online, your customers expect to see real-time inventory availability, pricing, and shipping information. In most cases, this data lives in other systems, such as your ERP, inventory management, and Product Information Management systems. In order to provide a full omni-channel customer experience and up to date information you will need a solution that offers order management and integrates well with other systems.
SEO – what’s the opportunity?
You may well already have a website that works when someone searches for your company name but what about your products? You may have a useful site, but if no-one knows you’re there, how can you optimise sales? One of the benefits of building a strategic ecommerce site is to increase the visibility of your brand through your product catalogue as it gets crawled and indexed by search engines like Google and Bing.
SEO helps buyers find your site, but you will need content that goes beyond product descriptions and price. Original and useful content is important and use descriptions that bring the product to life and differentiate them for customers, and do not rely on just product IDs.
Don’t wait
eCommerce is connected to every level of your business, so its impact is significant. It’s not like Accounting or Warehouse management that primarily exist to support one function of the organisation. It’s worth engaging experts to help you in the early stages of a new or revitalised B2B ecommerce project, to help you develop your strategic roadmap. The future of B2B business is tied to the success of ecommerce so it is critical to get this right from the very beginning. The faster you move your business online, the more successful you will be in attracting the next generation of buyers – and they are the ones who will grow your business fastest.
Brian Green is director of EMEA, Magento
- Here's our selection of the best ecommerce hosting in 2018
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Uganda imposes hefty social media tax to cut down on 'gossip'
Uganda's parliament has passed a new social media tax, which will charge a daily fee of 200 Ugandan shillings (about US$0.50, £0.40, AU$0.70) to anyone using social apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. That's a hefty sum for a country with a GDP per capita of about 2,511,500 shillings.
The country's president, Yoweri Museveni, pushed for the tax on the grounds that social media encourages "gossip". However, it's not clear how social media use will be monitored and how the money will be collected.
Access to social media in Uganda was shut down completely during elections in 2016, in what Museveni called "a security measure to avert lies".
Taxes and bans
The news comes shortly after Papua New Guinea's government announced an experiment to block Facebook for a month to identify fake users and gauge how the social network affects the country's citizens.
"The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information," communications minister Sam Basil told the country's most popular newspaper, the Post-Courier.
Basil has also suggested that Papua New Guinea could set up its own alternative social network.
Via Engadget
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