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Facebook has announced Wednesday the extension of its local news son more than 400 cities in the United States, one way to encourage its users spend more time on the platform.
Initially launched in January, the Today In thread includes information published by local news sites, but also by institutional actors in the agglomeration concerned, such as firefighters, the town hall or the police.
According to Anthea Watson Strong, product manager for local news, studies with Facebook users have shown that more than 50% of them would prefer to see more local information on Facebook. No other content was the subject of such a request among visitors of the platform, said the official in a message post Wednesday.
Information deserts
While the news feed was so far intended for agglomerations or regions with a local press, Facebook has added to the device information deserts, devoid of media coverage followed.
A study published in October by the University of North Carolina showed that the disappearance of 20% of newspapers since 2004 in the United States had contributed to increase the number of these local information deserts. In these information deserts, the thread is nourished by institutional information, complemented by media-rich content covering surrounding regions.
Facebook also plans to work with around 100 local authorities to set up a warning system that would provide local Facebook users with urgent and important information.
In addition to the United States, the social network is testing a version of Today In in Australia.
This development of local information is part of the initiatives taken by Mark Zuckerberg's network to boost its growth: if the number of Facebook users continues to increase, with 2.27 billion monthly active users at the end of September, growth has t in recent months lagging behind what the markets expected.
(Nxp / afp)
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