Facebook plans 'terrifying' Duncan

News UK’s chief marketing officer Chris Duncan has branded Facebook plans to get publishers to load content on its mobile app rather than their own sites as “terrifying”.
The idea is that publishers would get a cut of Facebook’s mobile ad revenue, and in return their stories would appear on Facebook and no longer on their own sites.
Duncan, the former Alchemetrics chief, made the remarks at a press conference called to announce subscribers at The Sun had risen by 120% (up from 102,000) since the title last reported figures in October 2013, although overall paid readership had fallen 2.2%.
He said Facebook’s plans would be terrifying for those publishers who depend on the social media site to drive web traffic.
The former director of customer data for News UK, who was handed the CMO role in the summer, added: “I think it would be a very terrifying time to be a publisher whose entire web traffic was dependent on Facebook.
“Facebook is moving into a world which has designs on how publishers should publish and that is problematic. We’re in a fortunate position where we can use Facebook as a channel but ultimately we are dealing with our customers direct and we’re dealing with them in our apps.
“So while social media is a big driver to get our stories out, to get discoverability, if it was the only thing we did we’d be struggling as a business.”
Last week, The Sun overhauled its online loyalty scheme as part of a four-pronged attack to drive print sales, reward readers of its digital version, re-engage lapsed readers and capture data.

Facebook plans ‘terrifying’ Duncan

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