The New York Times today sheds light on rumors that Facebook has gone directly to media labels, offering to directly premiere and host music videos on Facebook, rather than on YouTube or Vevo, the traditional options.
If true, this strategic move echoes the news outlet deal Facebook inked back in May, wherein written content producers like The New York Times, National Geographic and the BBC would post their articles directly to Facebook. LinkedIn had pursued a similar strategy by getting CEOs and journalists to write posts on LinkedIn, rather than merely sending users to posts on corporate blogs.
With 1.4 billion users, Facebook has an enormous audience, and no doubt drives a very significant amount of traffic to sites like the Huffington Post or Spotify or YouTube. I think that Facebook’s next prerogative is to get users to stay within the ecosystem, rather than use newsfeed merely as a springboard to other websites.
Silicon Spatula 