Facebook announced their Instant Articles feature last week with little fanfare. However, this is fairly significant to newspaper publishers who may see their own new media content threatened by Facebook's move to corner the market in publication distribution.

In the past if Facebook users shared content this would lead outside of Facebook to the original publishers website. This would lead to delays in access times and with the nature of modern browsing habits some users (particularly mobile users) would be unwilling to wait for pages to load. Facebook propose to host the content within their infrastructure with Facebook Instant Articles. They will publish the article, images and advertisements directly within Facebook decreasing load times, which is especially important to mobile users. Facebook have presented this innovation as a win-win solution for all parties involved. Facebook retain the users attention. The user is able to rapidly access content and the publisher is ostensibly able to retain 100% of their advertising revenue and 70% of Facebook's inline advertising revenue. Perhaps even more attractive is the access to the elusive younger demographic that will be gained by tapping into Facebook's social stream.

This demonstrates what may be seen as a logical shift as publishers can no longer rely on their content being a magnet to the user. Instead the publishers need to get their content directly to the user wherever they are on the web. This technology promises to provide the data to give increasingly relevant content served directly to the user adding more value and therefore generating greater engagement and loyalty from the user base.

Facebook will as a result be able distribute content from across the web whilst retaining a captive audience that it will be able to subject to increasingly targeted advertising.

The power of Facebook's algorithm as a curator of content will increase Facebook's ability to act as gatekeeper to its users viewing habits. This could create an ever increasing news bubble by which the algorithm promotes content that Facebook presumes we are interested in based on our likes, browsing habits and search history. So this is not necessarily the perfect solution for users that is being promoted.

Publishers would also be wise to be wary of Facebook's motives. Publishers have already seen the power of the social media giant as in the past few months some publishers have seen their traffic drop by 30% as Facebook tweaked its algorithm to deal with clickbait. Those that join have the prospect of gaining new markets and the possibility of having their content promoted to the top of the stream. However for paywall content providers this is a less attractive solution unless Facebook builds in the ability to discern existing subscribers.

Ultimately what Facebook is presenting as a technology to improve user experience is in actual fact a financially motivated plan to gain access to lucrative content and advertising revenues whilst simultaneously retaining users within its own ecosystem.