- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor
Some of you tell us you have cut ties with the uber-Lord Mark Zuckerberg, controlling shareholder of Facebook.
But I know that the majority of you are still, like me, under the sway of Mr. Z's addictive algorithm. I know that because Google's digital spying data (Analytics) tell me most of you still come to any given article on OwenSoundHub.org by first clicking on a Facebook link.
Just like Facebook, newspapers have historically been cheap or free. That's because the real money came from selling "views" – eyes looking at all the paid content on the pages, from the obituaries, birth announcements and government notices to want ads, real estate classifieds and full page display ads. Now those eyes, all six billion (assuming an average of two each for the three billion monthly active users), are on Facebook and advertisers are lining up to pay.
Mr. Z (I pronounce it "Zee" in my head because he is an American) holds a current net worth of $68.6 billion.
Facebook alone had ad revenue of $116.3 billion in 2022.
Out of the 60 most recent posts on my personal newsfeed, about half are from friends, family and organizations I follow, or other people's posts they've shared. Of the other half, posts are evenly split.
Half are "sponsored" – that is, paid. Another nickel in Mr. Z's tin cup. If you've ever bought a Facebook ad or boosted a post, you'll know that you can specify geographic and demographic information about those you want to see it. I understand how I am in the target audience for Everything Zoomer or Nature Canada, but I frankly think that realtor in Troy, NY, got taken.
The other quarter of posts in my feed are "suggested" for me. By the end of this year, Mr. Z says he expects a third of the content in your newsfeed to be recommended by AI from non-followed accounts. (That is Artificial Intelligence, not a guy named Al, but a guy named Al might have known better than to suggest The Mother of All Nerds to me.) This is Facebook trying to get my eyes on the content of an ever-expanding range of advertisers.
The Facebook algorithm evaluates every post and ad, scoring the content and arranging it in descending, non-chronological order of interest for each individual user every time you refresh your feed.
Our wee communities in Grey Bruce add our tiny share to the wealth of Mr. Z's metaverse every time a local organization or business chooses to buy or boost. It's cheap and efficient, but it's frustrating that it often replaces or reduces advertising support for this proudly local on-line media outlet.
One more note: if you wait for Mr. Z to curate the articles you read from the Owen Sound Hub, you may be missing out.
In the past 24 hours, this mysterious algorithm has given Hub posts a reach (the number of newsfeeds in which they were posted) of anywhere from 81 to 2,900. The lowest was a post of an article submitted by a local organization, and the highest was a share, with our comment, of a post.
The algorithm gave one post that I created recently a reach of 13,500 – it was to warn people of a cheese recall.
If I could figure out which articles would reach the most readers through the Facebook algorithm, I would reveal that secret and make my fortune.
If you're a Facebook reader of the Hub, I recommend you visit OwenSoundHub.org from time to time and scroll through the Magazine section, just to see what Mr. Z's algorithm thinks would NOT interest you, and see if you agree.
