Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Media Websites Battle Faltering Ad Revenue and Traffic"

Thanks, Pine. Some stand-out quotes from the article: <quote> *85 cents of every new dollar spent in online advertising will go to Google or Facebook, said Brian Nowak, a Morgan Stanley analyst.* <end of quote> <quote> *Facebook also announced that it would open up Instant Articles — which encourage publishers to post their content directly to Facebook — to “any publisher.” ...* *... the rate at which links to outside websites are shared on Facebook, compared with videos and Instant Articles, has declined. ...* *Mr. Denton, once known for harsh assessments of the media business, struck a conciliatory tone. “The Instant Articles deal seems great,” he said in an interview last week. “Users get relevant stories and relevant ads. It’s the realization of that particular Internet dream.* <end of quote> Wikipedia is being re-packaged and re-branded in the Knowledge Graph, the Amazon Echo, in Facebook, and so forth, complete with ads and commercial tie-ins. In much the same way, media companies' content is about to be packaged and re-branded in Facebook, with part of the ad money going to Facebook instead of the people who researched, wrote and checked the content. (At least the content producers are getting *some* of the money from Facebook, unlike Wikimedia, which gets nothing.) Consumer behaviour is turning Google and Facebook into ultra-rich behemoths, creating a media landscape dominated by monopolists that know everything about you: what you read, what you buy, what you're thinking about, who your friends are. Sometimes I think 1984 will come. It'll just be fifty years late. Andreas On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 6:29 PM, Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: