LittleThings online publisher shuts down, blames Facebook's algorithm(businessinsider.com)
businessinsider.com
LittleThings online publisher shuts down, blames Facebook's algorithm
http://www.businessinsider.com/littlethings-online-publisher-shuts-down-and-blames-facebook-algorithm-2018-2
52 comments
As noted by Daring Fireball:
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/02/28/littlethings
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/02/28/littlethings
> As noted by Daring Fireball
> Any publisher that is dependent on Facebook, or that trusts Facebook, is out of their goddamn mind.
I think it is okay to bootstrap this way, but you must have an exit strategy.
> Any publisher that is dependent on Facebook, or that trusts Facebook, is out of their goddamn mind.
I think it is okay to bootstrap this way, but you must have an exit strategy.
Yeah. This isn't the first time we've seen Facebook pull the rug out on something. Used to be that my news feed was absolutely full of posts from the Facebook apps/games platform spamming your whole friends list to join into Mafia Wars or FarmVille.
Eventually Facebook caught on that this was annoying and not a good use of the news feed, but if your business was dependent on it I imagine the effects were similar.
Having seen that happen before, building a company based on what Facebook decides to put in the news feed sounds insane.
Eventually Facebook caught on that this was annoying and not a good use of the news feed, but if your business was dependent on it I imagine the effects were similar.
Having seen that happen before, building a company based on what Facebook decides to put in the news feed sounds insane.
What would that even look like? I think it would be very hard to transition a Facebook-only audience to some other platform.
Collect everyone's email address along the way? Then you might as well be an email newsletter business.
Collect everyone's email address along the way? Then you might as well be an email newsletter business.
Give users reasons to engage with the website directly rather than always gated through someone else's experience?
That doesn't necessarily mean "email newsletter business", it could be any of the number of ways businesses have tried to convert first impressions into continued engagement. The referral platform shouldn't particularly matter, really. Today's complaints about Facebook-driven traffic drying up are last century's complaints about Yellow Pages-driven phone calls drying up. How are you handling people after they arrived/called? What other avenues for referrals have you explored? There's a lot of business advice that I don't think has largely changed there anywhere near as much as the technology medium has.
That doesn't necessarily mean "email newsletter business", it could be any of the number of ways businesses have tried to convert first impressions into continued engagement. The referral platform shouldn't particularly matter, really. Today's complaints about Facebook-driven traffic drying up are last century's complaints about Yellow Pages-driven phone calls drying up. How are you handling people after they arrived/called? What other avenues for referrals have you explored? There's a lot of business advice that I don't think has largely changed there anywhere near as much as the technology medium has.
It's really hard to convince people to regularly "pull" content from you versus agreeing to have it "pushed" to them somehow. You need one heckuva brand.
I like email because it's one of the only "push" media that's both widely deployed and decentralized. (I once thought RSS would become that for the web, but it hasn't worked out that way.)
In any event, if you've been relying on Facebook to supply 75% of the traffic that goes in the top of the funnel, you're going to be having a bad day when that disappears. Even if the funnel is great.
I like email because it's one of the only "push" media that's both widely deployed and decentralized. (I once thought RSS would become that for the web, but it hasn't worked out that way.)
In any event, if you've been relying on Facebook to supply 75% of the traffic that goes in the top of the funnel, you're going to be having a bad day when that disappears. Even if the funnel is great.
Just because it is hard doesn't mean the companies get a pass for not doing it. If you don't have a brand that users want to "pull" from you, what are you even doing as a publisher? That's almost Publishing 101. It's easy to blame Facebook for the hard work that they should have done all along, is all I'm saying here. ;)
As an RSS fan (and still an active user), I do agree that one of the prime failings here was that publishers in general too strongly backed the Facebook horse instead of, say, training users about the advantages of RSS. But yeah, why do the hard work today when you can wait for the rug to pulled out from under you by a third party and then do the hard work anyway?
As an RSS fan (and still an active user), I do agree that one of the prime failings here was that publishers in general too strongly backed the Facebook horse instead of, say, training users about the advantages of RSS. But yeah, why do the hard work today when you can wait for the rug to pulled out from under you by a third party and then do the hard work anyway?
>they need us for the content
Wow, that's adorable
Wow, that's adorable
Wait you didn't enjoy having "7 Things In Your Home That Could Kill Your Cat Right Now" shared on feed?
What's wrong with you? Do you just not give a fuck about cats??
What's wrong with you? Do you just not give a fuck about cats??
I honestly prefer the Friends and Family content over all the videos and articles that were filling up my feed previously. I think that it sucks for all these publishers that relied on Facebook, but I know I for one was getting fed up with Facebook being filled with stuff my friends liked instead of life updates.
Whereas on my FB, I've unfollowed almost every individual and my feed is 90%+ "groups". Facebook is absolutely superb for associating with random interest groups, I've found, now that Usenet is next to useless. Pages, though? Meh.
Groups are the only thing that keep my account active. I miss the Groups app for iOS though.
I thought I was the only weirdo that prefers to interact with random strangers rather than people I know on Facebook. I miss the days of IRC and AIM screen names. Now we have "real name policies"...
I agree. I had tuned my FB feed to be cute animals, updates on F&F (& their kids) and physics and math jokes. The US 2016 election completely messed that up and I eventually just stopped visiting. I just went back a couple of days ago and most of the stuff I consider noise is gone.
Facebook went through the same kind of issue themselves. At one point Zynga Games (Farmville fame) was about 70% of Facebook's profits. Then the variety of phones apps and copycat games Facebook without the ads became popular. This almost killed Zynga and by proxy Facebook. That was about the time Zuckerberg also stepped down. Odd timing.
In the business world many people say you should never put more the 30% of budget at anytime in one market onless yuo have a way to switch out of it. Since 75% of LittleThings' traffic came from Facebook a YouTube style adpocolipse scenario was bound to happen eventually.
In the business world many people say you should never put more the 30% of budget at anytime in one market onless yuo have a way to switch out of it. Since 75% of LittleThings' traffic came from Facebook a YouTube style adpocolipse scenario was bound to happen eventually.
Headline could also read: "LittleThings builds business model dependent on some other for profit business, blames them for doing something."
Live by the algorithm...die by the algorithm
There's a particularly irksome reference in this article:
> took out roughly 75% of LittleThings' organic traffic while hammering its profit margins.
From my admittedly limited expertise this would be called "Social" traffic. In a time gone by, even "Referral" traffic. I don't imagine that the frequency of links appearing in private news feeds would lead to any change in organic traffic.
It may well be an editorial error, but if it's from the horses mouth it's almost as worrying as the marketing strategy itself.
> took out roughly 75% of LittleThings' organic traffic while hammering its profit margins.
From my admittedly limited expertise this would be called "Social" traffic. In a time gone by, even "Referral" traffic. I don't imagine that the frequency of links appearing in private news feeds would lead to any change in organic traffic.
It may well be an editorial error, but if it's from the horses mouth it's almost as worrying as the marketing strategy itself.
I'm almost certain that this isn't an error, and they actually lost 75% of all real traffic. The entire "marketing strategy" of blogs/sites such as these is to create viral/click-bait articles and hope people share them on Facebook and similar websites.
You are correct from a cross-channel standpoint, FB traffic would typically be called "Social" or even "Referral" in some cases.
In this case, I'd guess they are referring to their organic reach within FB that in turn drove traffic to their site. I could also see it impacting actual organic traffic though. To the degree search algorithms may factor in social relevance, any backlinks gained from things shared on social and then posted to websites, etc., I could see plummeting social reach ripple out to organic traffic to Google potentially.
In this case, I'd guess they are referring to their organic reach within FB that in turn drove traffic to their site. I could also see it impacting actual organic traffic though. To the degree search algorithms may factor in social relevance, any backlinks gained from things shared on social and then posted to websites, etc., I could see plummeting social reach ripple out to organic traffic to Google potentially.
The better word for organic here is free traffic. Buying newsfeed ads was either at a loss or break even but the sharing/interactions from the paid stuff triggered the free traffic.
The founders of LittleThings knew what they were doing. I’m guessing they pocketed good profits in the beginning and then tried to cash out at the end. Everyone knew this Facebook newsfeed traffic would end like Zynga.
It has been a big positive for publishers who were getting lower CPMs because these sites were sucking display network ad spend dry every day. I assume it’s also a big positive for society since fewer drivers are looking at dumb Facebook clickbait while flying down the highway.
The founders of LittleThings knew what they were doing. I’m guessing they pocketed good profits in the beginning and then tried to cash out at the end. Everyone knew this Facebook newsfeed traffic would end like Zynga.
It has been a big positive for publishers who were getting lower CPMs because these sites were sucking display network ad spend dry every day. I assume it’s also a big positive for society since fewer drivers are looking at dumb Facebook clickbait while flying down the highway.
Facebook is on it's way out to being the next AOL, friendster, myspace etc. They were never anywhere near a Google in terms of revenue, users (youtube, gmail, search etc) and most importantly, from the ground up algorithmic utility. Interacting with social connections is different and more transient than interacting with raw data or information.
Facebook had 2.2 Billion active monthly users at the end of 2017.
That's 1/3 of the people on the planet. Even if you don't trust that number, its hard to criticize them because they don't have enough users.
That's 1/3 of the people on the planet. Even if you don't trust that number, its hard to criticize them because they don't have enough users.
How many of those are bots and phony accounts?
In the US & Canada, the number of active accounts has been in decline.
https://techcrunch-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/techcrunch.com...
Granted, only by ~1 million, but that's not growth.
Facebook will always be profitable in some respect, just as AOL is still profitable, but it's entirely possible that people are going to get bored and move on to other things. Old folks will still use Facebook to debate about which Denny's in town has the better supreme skillet, but there's no sign that Facebook will hold on to the ubiquity it currently has.
Maybe Facebook will continue to mean something to the world outside the west, which a graph in the story I linked to seems to suggest.
In the US & Canada, the number of active accounts has been in decline.
https://techcrunch-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/techcrunch.com...
Granted, only by ~1 million, but that's not growth.
Facebook will always be profitable in some respect, just as AOL is still profitable, but it's entirely possible that people are going to get bored and move on to other things. Old folks will still use Facebook to debate about which Denny's in town has the better supreme skillet, but there's no sign that Facebook will hold on to the ubiquity it currently has.
Maybe Facebook will continue to mean something to the world outside the west, which a graph in the story I linked to seems to suggest.
As noted in the article original source:
https://digiday.com/media/littlethings-shuts-casualty-facebo...
I still find people, even guys, filling my feed with Tasty and look-alike videos.
https://digiday.com/media/littlethings-shuts-casualty-facebo...
I still find people, even guys, filling my feed with Tasty and look-alike videos.
At least a lot of the Tasty videos have some kinda value to them, I suppose.
If their business dried up already, to a fatal degree, they didn't have much of a business.
If they don't have enough of a core audience to monetize what's left... or even try, I would wonder what they were really up to.
If they don't have enough of a core audience to monetize what's left... or even try, I would wonder what they were really up to.
The problem shown by this is that Facebook owns the audience and uses it as it chooses, and it's getting harder and harder for other sites have have "core audiences" of their own.
This site may have been one of the weakest ones, but this same issue is playing out for newspapers and other media organizations, for instance. Facebook owned the audience, pushed those organizations to tailor their product to it, then pulled the rug out from under them. That's an enormous amount of power for one company to have.
This site may have been one of the weakest ones, but this same issue is playing out for newspapers and other media organizations, for instance. Facebook owned the audience, pushed those organizations to tailor their product to it, then pulled the rug out from under them. That's an enormous amount of power for one company to have.
I think that's a simplification. Facebook owns an audience, a huge and (until last month) easily accessible audience. Companies built on renting that particular audience are going to have a bad time, but that doesn't mean all audiences have just dried up. Facebook has admitted that the algorithm changes lowered engagement. Those eyeballs didn't just vanish into thin air, they went somewhere else, somewhere publishers only focusing on Facebook can't reach them.
I'm puzzled by the use of the word "own". FB doesn't "own" it's users, which is kind of the point. Users gonna use, and that might be FB, but also could be something else. Thinking that FB "owns" their users is similar to LittleThings thinking they were invaluable. It may not end the way you expect (e.g. MySpace, AOL, etc).
It would be far better if there were a many dozens of Facebooks with roughly equal numbers of users. It would be a much more intelligible market for the small fish to operate in, as the whims of any one algorithm wouldn't be so significant.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of internet traffic is controlled by a handful of algorithms controlled by an even smaller number of organizations. Their inscrutable whims can make or break businesses, and that's far to much power for them to have.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of internet traffic is controlled by a handful of algorithms controlled by an even smaller number of organizations. Their inscrutable whims can make or break businesses, and that's far to much power for them to have.
[deleted]
Another content parasite cut loose, what a shame, how will we continue on with our lives? potential retitle: Big Things Crush LittleThings
anyone still using RSS Feed for their news, article, etc?
i still prefer open my rss reader rather than open any social media sites/app, except when i want to to see what my friends do than i open my socmed
i still prefer open my rss reader rather than open any social media sites/app, except when i want to to see what my friends do than i open my socmed
Heck,yeah! They’ll have to pry my RSS feed out of my cold, dead hands.
Getting my “content” via RSS is like reading in a cozy, quiet library, whereas with social it’s like trying to read between a busy construction site and a highway on-ramp, complete with obnoxious honking and plastered with billboards.
Getting my “content” via RSS is like reading in a cozy, quiet library, whereas with social it’s like trying to read between a busy construction site and a highway on-ramp, complete with obnoxious honking and plastered with billboards.
I still use a RSS reader but the number of my feeds has gone down from a dozen to three. When they quit sending you the feed you are screwed.
If you build your house out of sticks, don't cry when the big bad wolf comes to blow it down. Sounds like LittleThings could have used a few more BigIdeas
[deleted]
The money quote:
> "Facebook is the destroyer of worlds."
> "Facebook is the destroyer of worlds."
It seems to me that this is the money quote:
> The prioritization of friends/family content over publishers was the last straw.
> The prioritization of friends/family content over publishers was the last straw.
Actually they took to extremes in some countries, there is an ongoing (e.g. already months) newsfeed experiment in Slovakia and some other countries where essentially ZERO content from pages is shown, not even the ones I am following and I would like to actually see the new content. I have to switch the "Explorer" (Explore) button in the left menu to see content from Pages.
Isn't this what Snapchat is doing?
Worlds that perhaps would never have existed without Facebook.
That world existed pre-Facebook, but speaking as someone formerly in media, Facebook has become a very worthy successor to Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy.
Media used to live and die on search engine traffic. SEO was king, getting ranked in searches was how you thrived. Once Facebook (and to a much smaller extent, Twitter) showed up, it became about the all-important share. Facebook worked very hard to make sure that people consumed a vast majority of their news and media diet through Facebook itself, and consumption patterns heavily changed as a result. Facebook became the 9000lb gorilla driving your traffic, and the extent to which you lived and died depended on how much money you were willing to put towards paid promotion of your content. They even built out ecosystems like Facebook Instant Articles, which move content off the publisher's platform and directly into Facebook.
With the newsfeed algorithm changes, media companies are left with an audience that doesn't use search and can't get contact with their articles via the channel they previously used to. Traffic is just gone, and it's going to kill a lot of already-struggling publishers as a result.
Media used to live and die on search engine traffic. SEO was king, getting ranked in searches was how you thrived. Once Facebook (and to a much smaller extent, Twitter) showed up, it became about the all-important share. Facebook worked very hard to make sure that people consumed a vast majority of their news and media diet through Facebook itself, and consumption patterns heavily changed as a result. Facebook became the 9000lb gorilla driving your traffic, and the extent to which you lived and died depended on how much money you were willing to put towards paid promotion of your content. They even built out ecosystems like Facebook Instant Articles, which move content off the publisher's platform and directly into Facebook.
With the newsfeed algorithm changes, media companies are left with an audience that doesn't use search and can't get contact with their articles via the channel they previously used to. Traffic is just gone, and it's going to kill a lot of already-struggling publishers as a result.
I have no real evidence to back this, but I think that many of these publishers simply would never have existed/gained traction without Facebook. Facebook made it (comparatively) very, very easy to get eyes on their articles, especially time-wasting "fluff" articles as opposed to articles that would have been search driven because of their search-worthy content.
> …I think that many of these publishers simply would never have existed/gained traction without Facebook. Facebook made it (comparatively) very, very easy to get eyes on their articles…
This is a good point that may not be universally understood. Just as Facebook can suppress certain content when it's useful for them, they also artificially "boost" content when it's useful for them.
For example, when Facebook Live was introduced you could get very high "reach" numbers (compared to your "normal" reach) simply by using this new feature that Facebook wanted to promote.
This is a good point that may not be universally understood. Just as Facebook can suppress certain content when it's useful for them, they also artificially "boost" content when it's useful for them.
For example, when Facebook Live was introduced you could get very high "reach" numbers (compared to your "normal" reach) simply by using this new feature that Facebook wanted to promote.
>“I think we need each other. We need them for the traffic; they need us for the content,” Mr. Speiser said on this week’s WSJ Media Mix podcast. “I think [Facebook] cares very much. I think without the content all these media companies are providing there’d be that much less reason to go on to the news feed.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-loves-publishers-says-...
Turns out no, I like my newsfeed better without all that content. The content I want to see on facebook is things that my friends post.