Facebook rolls out FB TechWire

Facebook on Wednesday made another move to extend its media reach when it launched FB TechWire, a resource that feeds journalists breaking news, first-person analysis, photos and videos posted to Facebook by technology "influencers and organizations." Like its predecessor Facebook NewsWire, FB TechWire is powered by social newswire Storyful and helps position Facebook as a journalism powerbroker. 

The New York Times says that Facebook "is increasingly becoming to the news business what Amazon is to book publishing," driving 20 percent of traffic to news sites.

Facebook, launched Facebook Newswire in April as a resource for journalists that aggregates newsworthy social content shared publicly on Facebook by news organizations and individual users. Facebook still isn’t creating its own news content, but its becoming increasingly influential in what becomes a story. And just because they’re not creating content doesn’t mean they’re not out to control as much of it as it can.

FB TechWire comes on the heels of a mobile hosting deal Facebook reportedly offered publishers last month. Under the proposal, Facebook will host articles directly on its mobile app and split the revenues with the publishers. Publishers who participate will reap the benefits of Facebook’s 1.3 billion person audience, but far fewer people will be referred to their sites.

Facebook has sent publishers a friend request. Whether or not they accept could alter the media and advertising landscape.

This article originally appeared on Campaign US