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Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

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Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#11

Post by jschuur »

tdb7893 wrote: post #7
jschuur wrote: post #5

People simply like too many pages that produce too much content. There has to be prioritization and people have a natural limit to how much time and attention they have to scroll down all the way. So this is a fundamentally hard problem to solve. You can already prioritize posts from a page to appear at the top of your feed if you really don't want to miss posts. The real issue is that people underestimate the amount…

But people have always liked too many pages so I'm not sure it can explain the recent drop

True, perhaps what's happening here is that Facebook made a change that genuinely made the experience better for people in terms of relevant content that they see, and page owners are now unhappy how this impacted their stats.

I'm also curious if the end of the elections had an impact on newspaper story interactions? Sure, there's no end to stories after Trump was elected and sworn in, but maybe people are just tired of wall to wall politics coverage?

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#12

Post by jschuur »

leejo wrote: post #9
jschuur wrote: post #5

People simply like too many pages that produce too much content. There has to be prioritization and people have a natural limit to how much time and attention they have to scroll down all the way. So this is a fundamentally hard problem to solve. You can already prioritize posts from a page to appear at the top of your feed if you really don't want to miss posts. The real issue is that people underestimate the amount…

This. From the article: > We went from roughly 20 posts per day to 24 posts per day. If you post that many articles to Facebook then I'm simply going to unfollow you. Imagine I have ten sources posting that much, or one hundred sources. You think I'm going to engage with everyone? Heck no. Post one thing a day, two absolute tops. Ideally one thing a week but obviously that's not many sources ideal model. If I really…

There are Twitter accounts (I'm looking at your Politico) that constantly repost their stories. I swear they're actually automating deleting their tweets and simply tweeting them every hour (disclaimer: I haven't validated this hypothesis). I don't even follow political Twitter accounts anymore, over tactics like this. I keep them all in a (private) list and browser the list when I want to see what's going on in US politics.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#13

Post by ganfortran »

ivanbakel wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see how Facebook is taking increasing control of news and publicity on its service. In a sense, we're long past the point of questioning whether it's ethical, since they've obviously been influencing content for a long while, but this is one of the strongest arguments for FOSS alternatives like Mastodon. Hopefully, if this continues, big businesses will push the shift to open instances for a more…

Big business loves censorship, they go straight demands it if not offered, look at the Youtube boycott that is happening right now. They are surely not fan of FOSS or freedom of speech.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#14

Post by jasode »

jschuur wrote: post #5

People simply like too many pages that produce too much content. There has to be prioritization and people have a natural limit to how much time and attention they have to scroll down all the way. So this is a fundamentally hard problem to solve. You can already prioritize posts from a page to appear at the top of your feed if you really don't want to miss posts. The real issue is that people underestimate the amount…

>There has to be prioritization and people have a natural limit to how much time and attention

I agree that this is probably the root cause. The top of the FB newsfeed is a zero sum game because each person has a finite amount of time.

Since the pixels of a newsfeed is always filled with instead of being empty, it means there should be a corresponding "something" that increased in frequency which in turn, diluted the frequency of the Chicago Tribute. E.g., a person "likes" Marvel films and NFL/NBA/MLB sports so they get more of those posts which crowds out the newspapers' posts. It can either a rash of "new likes" or a FB algorithm change that re-prioritized them.

Kurt Gessler is only able to see the audience stats from the vantage point of Chicago Tribune instead of total stats from the audience perspective. Therefore, it's like the proverbial blind men feeling around the elephant.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#15

Post by jpalomaki »

ivanbakel wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see how Facebook is taking increasing control of news and publicity on its service. In a sense, we're long past the point of questioning whether it's ethical, since they've obviously been influencing content for a long while, but this is one of the strongest arguments for FOSS alternatives like Mastodon. Hopefully, if this continues, big businesses will push the shift to open instances for a more…

Facebook is likely trying to maximize the time people spend on browsing their feed. Surface too many "boring" news articles in a row and user might go away. Put a nice mixture of news, goofy stuff, updates from friends, some fake news to provoke action and user remains.

Hundreds of millions of people stare the news feed on weekly basis and interact with it. This creates a spectacular opportunity for employing machine learning to optimize things. Facebook has huge amount of data and it is easy to run various tests automatically to see what works in practice.

If this is the case, then it may be difficult for the others to compete. Facebook might be doing exactly what customers want - even if they don't know it themselves.

My thoughts were influenced by this article posted on HN some weeks ago: http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-...

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#16

Post by strict9 »

FB has always prioritized content which doesn't lead them to see ads elsewhere (like photos instead of links), but maybe it's something else.

I live in Chicago and subscribe to the Sunday edition. I also read the digital edition, and have found it lacking, particularly since inauguration. In recent months Michael Ferro became the majority shareholder in the Tribune, a person obsessed with celebrities and not so much in local or even national news coverage. He's the guy that fired all the Sun Times photojournalists and mandated reporters use their iPhones instead.

The paper has struggled to find its place in trying to be like the NY Times or Washington Post, covering important national issues, but without the same resources. Meanwhile, hyperlocal sites like DNAinfo have filled the niche, which has strong FB engagement because it provides content people are interested in, but the Tribune isn't providing.

Instead of blaming a third party which bears no obligation to send traffic, the Tribune would be better served in providing better local news coverage and less in areas which aren't compelling (celebrity gossip) or where it can't compete (national coverage like NYT).

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#17

Post by leejo »

jschuur wrote: post #12
leejo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. From the article: > We went from roughly 20 posts per day to 24 posts per day. If you post that many articles to Facebook then I'm simply going to unfollow you. Imagine I have ten sources posting that much, or one hundred sources. You think I'm going to engage with everyone? Heck no. Post one thing a day, two absolute tops. Ideally one thing a week but obviously that's not many sources ideal model. If I really…

There are Twitter accounts (I'm looking at your Politico) that constantly repost their stories. I swear they're actually automating deleting their tweets and simply tweeting them every hour (disclaimer: I haven't validated this hypothesis). I don't even follow political Twitter accounts anymore, over tactics like this. I keep them all in a (private) list and browser the list when I want to see what's going on in US p…

Possibly they're trying to game the algorithm. I follow a few photo sources on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and RSS feeds from their sites (when offered). The consequence is that I see the same posts multiple times, not just across the various feeds but from a single feed. It's not them deleting and reposting, it's more posting slight variations of the same article (again, possibly trying to game the algorithm).

But the screaming match drives me nuts. What good is 100,000 views anyway if only 100 people actually click through and engage? Better to have 1,000 views and 200 click through/engage. Target better, stop throwing shit at walls.

Just as an example - I recently had a little project featured on one of the top 10 photo channels on YouTube - 300k+ subscribers. The video currently has had 13,000 views in three weeks, and in it I get a full minute long feature + a link to my site. How many sales have I made through the feature? Zero. When I first posted the project on a niche site, a couple of years ago, I had ten sales within the space of a couple of days.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#18

Post by nerdponx »

jpalomaki wrote: post #15
ivanbakel wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see how Facebook is taking increasing control of news and publicity on its service. In a sense, we're long past the point of questioning whether it's ethical, since they've obviously been influencing content for a long while, but this is one of the strongest arguments for FOSS alternatives like Mastodon. Hopefully, if this continues, big businesses will push the shift to open instances for a more…

Facebook is likely trying to maximize the time people spend on browsing their feed. Surface too many "boring" news articles in a row and user might go away. Put a nice mixture of news, goofy stuff, updates from friends, some fake news to provoke action and user remains. Hundreds of millions of people stare the news feed on weekly basis and interact with it. This creates a spectacular opportunity for employing machine…

Agreed. They want to sell ads on Facebook.com, and they can't do that if you aren't glued to Facebook.com all day.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#19

Post by jschuur »

leejo wrote: post #9
jschuur wrote: post #5

People simply like too many pages that produce too much content. There has to be prioritization and people have a natural limit to how much time and attention they have to scroll down all the way. So this is a fundamentally hard problem to solve. You can already prioritize posts from a page to appear at the top of your feed if you really don't want to miss posts. The real issue is that people underestimate the amount…

This. From the article: > We went from roughly 20 posts per day to 24 posts per day. If you post that many articles to Facebook then I'm simply going to unfollow you. Imagine I have ten sources posting that much, or one hundred sources. You think I'm going to engage with everyone? Heck no. Post one thing a day, two absolute tops. Ideally one thing a week but obviously that's not many sources ideal model. If I really…

Also, wow:

  However, Facebook’s formal guidance is 24 to 48 posts per day.
Facebook recommends 24-48 posts PER DAY? Surely this is an error. Where is this recommended? That's insane.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#20

Post by [deleted] »

leejo wrote: post #9
jschuur wrote: post #5

People simply like too many pages that produce too much content. There has to be prioritization and people have a natural limit to how much time and attention they have to scroll down all the way. So this is a fundamentally hard problem to solve. You can already prioritize posts from a page to appear at the top of your feed if you really don't want to miss posts. The real issue is that people underestimate the amount…

This. From the article: > We went from roughly 20 posts per day to 24 posts per day. If you post that many articles to Facebook then I'm simply going to unfollow you. Imagine I have ten sources posting that much, or one hundred sources. You think I'm going to engage with everyone? Heck no. Post one thing a day, two absolute tops. Ideally one thing a week but obviously that's not many sources ideal model. If I really…

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