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Facebook is testing a new feature which allows users to link their account to various news subscription websites. As revenues from ads are continuously on the decline, major publications around the globe are shifting towards subscription models. To keep companies afloat, major publishers are shifting towards paid models.
To keep users logged in, Facebook is partnering with publishers to offer a seamless experience. Rather than having to sign in again when browsing an article through Facebook, users will automatically be signed into relevant publications for which they have subscriptions. Users would link their accounts with the publishers so that they don’t have to sign in repeatedly to read any article.
As per the tests conducted so far, subscribers who had their accounts linked on average had 111% more clicks on articles that they got through the Facebook feed. Facebook intends to deepen the relationship between publishers and subscribers. According to David Grant, program manager for the Facebook Journalism Project’s Accelerator program: “Through account linking, we hope that Facebook can be a powerful extension of those efforts, helping news organizations drive deeper subscriber engagement and bring more paying readers to their high-quality journalism, which is the foundation of keeping communities informed and connected.”
The program is still in the testing phase and is expected to be rolled out to more publishers and accounts for testing soon.
