In his latest article on re-code.net, Peter Kafka reports, “Investors and analysts spent years clamoring for Facebook to start up an ad network, andearlier this year it obliged them. And now Facebook is rolling out another one. Caveat — this isn’t an ad network in a formal sense. But it’s going to be viewed as one, because in the big picture, it does the thing people outside Facebook wanted an ad network to do: It lets advertisers buy ads, via Facebook, on properties Facebook doesn’t own. Some of the details about Facebook’s plans have been leaking out for months, starting with a... [...]

Karissa Bell says, “Ello, the independent, invitation-only and ad-free social network that went viral almost overnight, is often compared to Facebook. Indeed, the still-nascent social network has already gained a reputation as the “anti-Facebook.” But Ello cofounder Paul Budnitz doesn’t put much stock in those comparisons — in part because he thinks Facebook’s users have become so commoditized that the platform stopped being a true social network long ago. “The advertisers are the customer and the user is the product that’s being bought and sold,”... [...]

Kurt Wagner & Jason Del Rey say, “Facebook first began testing a “Buy” button within the News Feed in July, and payments startup Stripe has been tasked with powering the technology, Re/code has learned. The “Buy” button, which allows Facebook users to purchase goods that are featured in ads or posts on the social network, is still in its test phase, but multiple sources said Stripe’s technology was supporting the button. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed Thursday that Stripe is the sole Facebook payments partner behind the test. A spokesperson for Stripe declined to comment”. Facebook... [...]

Selena Larson says, “The news business is increasingly dependent on social media to reach an audience, and it’s changed a great deal as a result—not always in good ways, either. That’s what led the Pew Research Center to take a deeper look at how social platforms shape the way people get their news. To no one’s big surprise, Facebook is the big kahuna for driving traffic to news sites. According to the Pew study, almost half of U.S. adults that use Facebook—that is, roughly 30% of the general population—also find news there”. Facebook Delivers News To 30% Of U.S.... [...]

Martin Beck says, “U.S. adults will spend 21 minutes a day, 6% of their total time with digital media, on Facebook in 2014, but the social network pulls in 10% of U.S. digital advertising spending, according to figures released this week by eMarketer. That over-indexing stands in direct contrast to all other digital media that eMarketer tracks. For instance, daily time spent on digital devices makes up nearly half of major media consumption, yet only 30.5% of total major media ad spending is on digital channels. Video takes up 15.9% of users’ time and gets 11.7% of spending. Online radio... [...]

Selena Larson says, “Just because Twitter wants to be more like Facebook doesn’t mean Facebook doesn’t want to be more like Twitter. About a month after Twitter started aping Facebook, shoving “curated” tweets in your timeline and suggesting strangers you should follow, Facebook is now getting into the “trending topics” game we know from that other social network. Posts on trending topics (and weighed for timeliness) will now appear higher in your news feed, Facebook announced on Thursday“. Facebook Takes Another Tip From Twitter And Pushes Trendy Topics ReadWrite  [...]

Todd Wasserman says, “A new tweak to Facebook’s News Feed aims to address the common problem of seeing days-old posts on the platform. In a blog post published Thursday, company software engineers Erich Owens and David Vickrey acknowledged that the News Feed often isn’t as fresh as it could be: Our goal with News Feed is to show everyone the right content at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them. We’ve heard feedback that there are some instances where a post from a friend or a Page you are connected to is only interesting at a specific moment,... [...]

Adario Strange says, “Facebook is reportedly working on a new app designed to encourage private content sharing — by making the process even more personal. Citing multiple sources, a report on Techcrunch claims that the current code name for the app is “Moments” and will give users a grid-style interface from which to share private moments with friends and family. The reasoning behind the app, allegedly, is to assist Facebook users who want to share intimate content with close contacts, but have been put off by the site’s increasingly complicated privacy settings”. Facebook... [...]

Selena Larson says, “Facebook has a new plan for helping application developers monitor the success—or failure—of their applications. And that’s true whether they’re developing apps specifically to work with Facebook or not. On Tuesday, the company introduced two new functions in App Insights, a tool that lets developers monitor traffic and Facebook interactions for apps. The new capabilities give app developers more detailed information about user behavior and app performance. App Insights requires the Facebook software development kit (SDK), but works for general mobile apps... [...]

Katie Richards says, “Facebook is taking steps towards making your interaction with in-feed advertising a little bit better by asking you why you don’t want to see a particular ad on your News Feed. Beginning last week, when you scroll through your News Feed, come across an ad you don’t want to see, and click out of the ad, Facebook will prompt you with the question: Why don’t you want to see this? The site offers a few options for you to choose from including it’s not relevant to me, I keep seeing this, it’s offensive or inappropriate, it’s spam, or something... [...]