Facebook has made a play for the native ads and branded content market that may just crush all its rivals, say pundits, who have analysed its new Facebook Paper news app, and concluded that it's struck gold on the social web.
The new iOS app, unveiled during its 10th birthday milestone, is minimal, intuitive and is modelled on the web news platform Flipboard. It could also be seriously addictive. Tap on a interesting piece of content and it goes full-screen.
In short, Facebook looks better on Paper. It doesn’t even have its own branding or logo on the app.
The cluttered Facebook columns are absent, while users can actively select the topics they want to see. While in a nascent form, with only 40 publishers on board, Facebook will be able to push the Paper app to its one billion users and present that audience to advertisers and brand agencies.
"Paper is Facebook’s latest (and smartest) move towards controlling the flow of content, and all the native ad dollars that go with it," said professional content provider Contently. "Want to place a native ad in someone’s social media feed? Facebook’s got you covered. Want to place a sponsored post in their go-to newspaper? If Paper takes off as expected, Facebook will have that covered, too."
Tech website The Verge has dubbed it the best Facebook app ever, noting that the first product from the company’s Creative Labs unit has delivered a fresh app that focuses on content, and not building friend lists.
“The ability to effectively demote your friends below Facebook’s editorially curated content heralds a sea change for the company,” the tech site said. “Paper allows you to experience a world built by Facebook engineers that doesn’t have Facebook’s core product in it.”
The app still has social sharing and friend notification and messaging features, but the focus is on allowing users to create their own specialised news feed. Content cards scroll along the bottom of the screen, and curation and control is handed to the user. Senior executives at Facebook are said to have switched over exclusively to the app and see it as its future dominant platform.
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