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Tag: Mark Zuckerberg

  • Donald Trump barred from Facebook ‘indefinitely’

    Donald Trump barred from Facebook ‘indefinitely’

    NEW DELHI: Facebook has indefinitely banned US president Donald Trump from its platform after he tried to incite violence at the US Capitol earlier this week.

    Mincing no words, a far cry from the social media giant’s prior treatment of Trump with kid gloves, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the president intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.

    “We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” he wrote in a community post. As a result, he said, Facebook and its photo-sharing site Instagram would extend blocks on Trump’s ability to post “until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

     

    The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining…

    Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, 7 January 2021

    Trump is also banned from using Instagram.

    Earlier in the day, when Trump made false claims about election fraud and the legitimacy of the next US president Joe Biden, nearly all social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat — locked his account for a brief period. Facebook imposed a ban for 24 hours and Twitter for 12 hours. The latter also asked the US president to remove three tweets for severe violation of its civic integrity policy, and failing to do so would lead to permanent suspension of his account.

    Trump’s Twitter account had been unlocked at the time of filing this report.

    The diverging actions showed how social media companies were still grappling with how to moderate one of their most powerful and popular users. Trump has routinely used his online mouthpieces to attack others, rile up supporters and disseminate disinformation, and these social media platforms had offered platitudes of “upholding free speech” to defend their inaction in the matter of not curtailing such provocative posts.

    YouTube had also removed the video where Trump told his supporters who had broken into the Capitol ‘I love you’ and described the agitators as patriots. The platform also cited that the video violated its policies. 

    The march was partly organised online, including on Facebook groups and pages. Facebook has mentioned that it was looking for and removing content that had incited or supported the storming of Capitol Hill. The violence at the US Capitol led to the death on one person and several injured.  

  • Facebook started FDI avalanche in India during pandemic: Mukesh Ambani

    Facebook started FDI avalanche in India during pandemic: Mukesh Ambani

    KOLKATA: At the beginning of the Covid2019 pandemic, Jio attracted its largest global investor – Facebook, which announced a $5.7 billion investment in the telco. At the inaugural Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event, Reliance Industries chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani said that the social media giant had set the ball rolling for overall foreign investment in India. Since then, record FDI has flown into the country.

    During a virtual session with Facebook founder, chairman & CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Ambani mentioned that Jio and Facebook have become value creation platforms for consumers as well as small businesses.

    He went on to explain that while Jio brings digital connectivity, WhatsApp now with WhatsApp Pay brings digital interactivity, and the ability to move to close transactions. On the other hand, Jio Mart offers unmatched online and offline retail opportunity, which gives the small shops dotting India’s villages and small towns a chance to digitise and be at par with everyone else in the world.

    “To my mind, more wealth creation means more employment and more business. And together with our platforms and the tools that we will provide to small businesses and to individual consumers, I believe will drive India to a $5 trillion economy and will make a much more equal India, with more equal wealth growth at the bottom of the pyramid,” Ambani added.

    Zuckerberg also agreed that the vision of helping small businesses lies at the core of the partnership. Facebook supports more than 50 million WhatsApp Business App users globally every month and more than 15 million of these are in India, he shared. With communities around the world now in lockdown, there are a lot of entrepreneurs who need digital tools that they can rely on to find and communicate with customers and grow their businesses. He added that this is something that the Facebook-Jio partnership can really help with.

    “We are looking forward to your (Facebook’s) involvement and innovation in India, creating benefits for hundreds of millions of people and then taking this innovation to the rest of the world. I hope that the rest of the world learns from Indian policy, and what Facebook is able to achieve in India. And we as Indians will be very proud, if Facebook says we did it first in India, and then took it to 100 countries. And I look forward to working with you on that,” Ambani reiterated.

  • Facebook’s Asia-Pacific numbers lesser impacted than other regions in pandemic quarter

    Facebook’s Asia-Pacific numbers lesser impacted than other regions in pandemic quarter

    BENGALURU: As people across most of the globe retreated indoors under the lockdown announced by most of the countries to reduce the growth rate of Covid2019, world economies were badly hit. Officegoers had no other option but to use media to keep themselves occupied as the amount of work-to-do shrank. With the closure of education institutions, theaters and malls and hotels, etc., misplaced suspicion about the safety of newsprint, no new television/film content being produced, news and movies on television, OTT, internet, social media, became the new tools for entertainment and information, for networking and socialising distantly, education, occupying minds, etc.  

    Social media networking major Facebook or FB reported its numbers for the first quarter ended 31 March 2020 (Q1 2020, quarter or period under review). Facebook reported 15.87 per cent lower Q-o-Q numbers for the quarter under review as compared to the previous quarter (quarter ended 31 December 2019, Q4 2019), but 17.64 per cent higher Y-o-Y than the year ago quarter Q1 2019. FB has witnessed Q-o-Q revenue declines in the first quarter earlier – in Q1 2018, revenue declined 7.76 per cent as compared to Q4 2018 and in Q1 2019 it declined 10.86 per cent as compared to Q4 2018. Overall, Facebook numbers have shown an increasing trend, the Covid2019 quarter is just a slightly bigger than the normal bump in its path to growth.

    FB reports revenues from four major geographical regions in the world – the largest in terms of revenue being the US-Canada region, followed by Europe, Asia-Pacific (A-Pac) and the Rest of the World or RoW. The US-Canada region contributes about 48 per cent, the Europe region about 24 per cent, APAC region about 18 per cent and RoW about 10 per cent to FB’s revenues. Please refer to the figure below for FB revenue breakup.

    Advertisement is the major revenue stream for FB that contributes to more than 98 per cent to its overall revenues. The figure below shows contribution in terms of percentage of ad revenue to total ad revenue from these geographical regions. As is obvious, the APAC region is the only one that has shown growth in contribution to FB’s ad revenues during Q1 2020 – It contributed 17.56 per cent to FB’s ad revenues in the previous quarter and its contribution to ad revenue increased to 18.56 per cent  in Q1 2020. As a matter of fact, the APAC region has shown only two downward blips in its contribution to ad revenue during 9 quarters (the quarter under review and its preceding 8 quarters). These two blips happened in Q1 2020 and Q4 2018.

    Growth in contribution to revenue from the APAC region has generally been steadier than the other regions. When FB’s revenues have declined Q-o-Q, the decline in revenues from the APACregion has been lower than the other regions during these nine quarters. The APACregion’s total revenue declined 11.13 per cent Q-o-Q in Q1 2020 as compared to declines of 16.45 percent, 17.54 per cent and 17.21 per cent from US-Canada, Europe and RoW regions respectively. Y-o-Y, revenues grew 17.16 percent, 16.55 percent, 21.44 per cent and 15.80 per cent in Q1 2020 from FB’s US-Canada, Europe, APAC and RoW regions, respectively.

    Facebook’s Daily Active Users or DAU grew 4.65 per cent in Q1 2020 to 1.734 billion as compared to 1.657 billion in Q4 2019. The APAC region has a major chunk of humanity, consequently, the company’s largest DAU are from the APACregion, and the number of these APACusers in Q1 2020 has grown 5.77 per cent Q-o-Q. Comparatively, the US-Canada, Europe and RoW regions have seen DAU growth in the quarter under review versus the immediate trailing quarter of 2.63 percent, 3.74 per cent and 4.51 per cent respectively. Please refer to the figure below:

    The US-Canada region has the least DAU  among the four FB regions, however, this region has FB’s highest ARPU or average revenue per person, as well as the highest Family Average Revenue Per Peson or ARPP. Facebook defines a monthly active person (MAP) as a registered and logged-in user of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and/or WhatsApp (collectively, FB’s "Family" of products) who visited at least one of
    these Family products through a mobile device application or using a web or mobile browser in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement. 

    With drop in revenue, Facebook’s ARPU in Q1 2020 dropped 12.89 per cent Q-o-Q world wide. Q-o-Q FB’s APAC region ARPU declined 6.08 percent. ARPU drops of 13.6 per cent by US-Canada, 13.02 per cent by Europe and 10.43 per cent by RoW also happened in the quarter under review. Please refer to the figure below:

    Excerpts on what the company has to say

    "Our work has always been about helping you stay connected with the people you care about," said FB founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, "With people relying on our services more than ever, we're focused on keeping people safe, informed and connected."

    Impact of Covid2019 on Outlook

    On Revenue: Our business has been impacted by the Covid2019 pandemic and, like all companies, we are facing a period of unprecedented uncertainty in our business outlook. We expect our business performance will be impacted by issues beyond our control, including the duration and efficacy of shelter-in-place orders, the effectiveness of economic stimuli around the world, and the fluctuations of currencies relative to the U.S. dollar.

    After the initial steep decrease in advertising revenue in March, we have seen signs of stability reflected in the first three weeks of April, where advertising revenue has been approximately flat compared to the same period a year ago, down from the 17 per cent year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2020. The April trends reflect weakness across all of our user geographies as most of our major countries have had some sort of shelter-in-place guidelines in effect.

    On Expenses:We expect to realize operational expense savings in certain areas such as travel, events, and marketing as well as from slower headcount growth in our business functions. However, we plan to continue to invest in product development and to recruit technical talent. In addition, we have committed over $300 million to date in investments to help our broader community during the crisis, which will have an impact on our financial performance this year. As a result, we expect total expenses in 2020 to be between $52-56 billion, down from the prior range of $54-59 billion. While this reflects a moderate reduction in the planned growth rate of total expenses, our overall expense growth in the face of expected revenue weakness will have a negative impact on 2020 operating margins.

    On Capex: Our significant investments in infrastructure over the past four years have served us well during this period of high user engagement. We plan to continue to grow our capex investments to enhance and expand our global infrastructure footprint over the long term. In 2020, we expect capital expenditures to be approximately $14-16 billion, down from the prior range of $17-19 billion. This reduction reflects a significant decrease in our construction efforts globally related to shelter-in-place orders. Given the strong engagement growth and related demands on our infrastructure, this year's capex reduction should be viewed as a deferral into 2021 rather than savings.
     

  • Zuckerberg promises better shopping experience through JioMart-WhatsApp

    Zuckerberg promises better shopping experience through JioMart-WhatsApp

    MUMBAI: It seems Facebook has great ambition for e-commerce and small business in India. While speculations have been rife on the scope of the social media giant’s investment in Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg keeps emphasising on small businesses and a better shopping experience.

    “One aspect of online commerce I want to mention is the partnership we just announced with Jio Platforms in India. The largest Facebook and WhatsApp communities in the world are in India, and we think there's an especially important opportunity to serve small businesses and enable commerce there over the long term. By bringing together JioMart, which is Jio's small business initiative to connect millions of shops across India, with WhatsApp, we think that we’re going to be able to create a much better shopping experience. There's a lot more we can do here and I'm looking forward to making progress with the team at Jio,” he commented in an earnings call after announcing q1 results.

    He also mentioned that there are millions of small businesses and shops across India and they want to try to help them get on a single network to communicate through Whatsapp and make online payment through WhatsApp. The Facebook CEO added that it is a great example of how they can wire up and help small businesses in the country where they have the largest WhatsApp community.

    “But certainly all the products and technology that we’re building to enable that partnership are going to be things we’re going to want to do around the world,” he added.

    Recently, Facebook made an investment of Rs 43,574 crore into Jio Platforms, translating into a 9.99 per cent equity stake in it on a fully diluted basis. Now, along with a strong local ally, it becomes one of the largest contenders in the e-commerce battle with Amazon and Flipkart. While Jio disrupted the telecom industry, it is unsure yet as to how the JioMart- Whatsapp force will unravel. 

  • Facebook takes 9.9% stake in Reliance Jio, to invest Rs 43,574 cr

    Facebook takes 9.9% stake in Reliance Jio, to invest Rs 43,574 cr

    Mumbai: Facebook has bought a 9.9 per cent stake in Reliance Jio for $5.7 billion (Rs 43,574 crore), the telecom unit of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). The multibillion-dollar deal gives the social media giant a firm foothold in a fast-growing massive market and helps the Indian oil-to-telecom conglomerate to significantly cut debt.

    This investment by Facebook values Jio platforms at Rs 4.62 lakh crore pre-money enterprise value ($65.95 billion, assuming a conversion rate of Rs 70 to a US Dollar). Facebook’s investment will translate into a 9.99 per cent equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis.

    Mark Zuckerberg, in a statement, said: “There's a lot going on in the world right now, but I wanted to share an update on our work in India. Facebook is teaming up with Jio Platforms; we're making a financial investment, and more than that, we're committing to work together on some major projects that will open up commerce opportunities for people across India. India is home to the largest communities on Facebook and WhatsApp, and a lot of talented entrepreneurs. The country is in the middle of a major digital transformation and organizations like Jio have played a big part in getting hundreds of millions of Indian people and small businesses online.”

    Reliance Industries Ltd chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said: “When Reliance launched Jio in 2016, we were driven by the dream of India’s digital Survodaya – India’s inclusive digital rise to improve the quality of life of every single Indian and to propel India as the world’s leading Digital Society. All of us at Reliance are therefore humbled by the opportunity to welcome Facebook as our long-term partner in continuing to grow and transform the digital ecosystem of India for the benefit of all Indians. The synergy between Jio and Facebook will help realise prime minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ Mission with its two ambitious goals — ‘ease of living’ and ‘ease of doing business’ – for every single category of Indian people without exception. In the post-Corona era, I am confident of India’s economic recovery and resurgence in the shortest period of time. The partnership will surely make an important contribution to this transformation.”

    Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, is a next-generation technology company building a digital society for India by bringing together Jio’s leading digital apps, digital ecosystems and India’s #1 high-speed connectivity platform under one umbrella. Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, which provides connectivity platform to over 388 million subscribers, will continue to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jio Platforms.

    Jio’s vision is to enable a digital India for 1.3 billion Indians and Indian businesses, especially small merchants, micro-businesses and farmers. Jio has brought transformational changes in the Indian digital services space and propelled India on the path towards becoming a global technology leader and among the leading digital economies in the world. 

    Jio has built a world-class digital platform powered by leading technologies such as broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Augmented and Mixed Reality and Blockchain.

    Jio has created an eco-system comprising network, devices, applications, content, service experiences and affordable tariffs for every Indian to experience the Jio Digital Life. During the current Covid-19 crisis, Jio’s platforms have been a dependable and inclusive Digital Lifeline for India, said a company statement.

    As one of the largest countries in the world, India is home to some of Facebook’s most thriving communities on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Over the years, Facebook has invested in India based on a strong belief in country’s entrepreneurial talent and opportunity, to help create meaningful impact for Indians and Indian businesses using their multiple platforms.

    The partnership between Facebook and Jio is unprecedented in many ways. This is the largest investment for a minority stake by a technology company anywhere in the world and the largest FDI in the technology sector in India. The investment values Jio Platforms amongst the top five listed companies in India by market capitalisation, within just three and a half years of launch of commercial services, validating Reliance Industries’ capability in incubating and building disruptive next-generation businesses, while delivering market defining shareholder value.

    The investment will enable new opportunities for businesses of all sizes, but especially for small businesses across India and create new and exciting digital ecosystems that will empower, enrich and uplift the lives of all 1.3 billion Indians.

    This partnership will accelerate India’s all-round development, fulfilling the needs of Indian people and the Indian economy. The partnership focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector, in addition to empowering people seeking various digital services.

    The partnership assumes special significance for India in the wake of the severe disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Indian — and the global — economy. In the post-COVID era, comprehensive digitalisation will be an absolute necessity for revitalisation of the Indian economy.

    Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Limited (Reliance Retail) and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp. WhatsApp already plays an important role in helping people and businesses connect in India. Reliance Retail’s New Commerce platform, JioMart, is being built in partnership with millions of small merchants and kirana shops to empower them to better serve the needs of Indian consumers. The companies will work closely to ensure that consumers are able to access the nearest kiranas which can provide products and services to their homes by transacting seamlessly with JioMart using WhatsApp.

    The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals. Morgan Stanley as financial advisor and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell as counsels advised on the transaction.

  • India leads Facebook daily active user growth

    India leads Facebook daily active user growth

    MUMBAI: India has fuelled the social media giant Facebook’s daily active user growth which increased by 9 per cent to 1.62 billion in the quarter ending September.

    “Daily active users reached 1.62 billion, up 9 per cent  compared to last year, led by growth in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. This represents approximately 66 per cent of the 2.45 billion monthly active users in September," Facebook chief financial officer David Wehner said.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also added on an optimistic note that the social media giant will soon be able to fully launch WhatsApp Pay in India.

    “We’re working on payments in WhatsApp. We have our tests going on in India. We’re very optimistic that we are going to be able to launch to everyone in India soon," he said.

    Facebook beat analysts estimation in the quarter in sales and witnessed steady user growth reporting $6.09 billion net income and reaching 2.45 billion monthly average users.

  • Facebook to launch much-awaited ‘Clear History’ tool later this year

    Facebook to launch much-awaited ‘Clear History’ tool later this year

    MUMBAI: While social media giant Facebook promised to prioritise user data privacy amid widespread controversy, the company is going to launch its much-awaited privacy tool titled 'Clear History' later this year. This new feature would enable users to delete their information collected by Facebook through third-party apps and websites.

    The step has been taken at a time when Facebook is under scrutiny by regulators as well as facing backlash worldwide for lack of data security. Following Cambridge Analytica scandal, the feature was announced in May 2018.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the tool as a "simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook—what a user has clicked on, what websites they visited etc". Facebook's chief financial officer David Wehner revealed that the Clear History tool was in development and could be expected to launch later this at the Morgan Stanley, Media and Telecom Conference in Barcelona.

    Wehner said the new feature would give Facebook headwinds affecting its ability to target users with adverts. "We want to make sure this works the way it should for everyone on Facebook, which is taking longer than expected," the social media giant said according to media reports.

    "In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want. We're building a version of this for Facebook too," Zuckerberg wrote earlier in a personal post on Facebook after the announcement.

  • Zuckerberg says Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram to integrate by 2020

    Zuckerberg says Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram to integrate by 2020

    MUMBAI: While there is an ongoing global outrage against the plans of Facebook to integrate WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is confident that the move will be in the best interest of the users. However, it is going to be a long-term project that might extend to 2020 or beyond.

    Speaking during an earning’s call announcing Facebook's fourth quarter results, Zuckerberg stated, “I can talk about messaging and the integration that we're thinking about, but first, we're really early in thinking through this. So there's a lot more that we need to figure out before we finalise the plans. And then, of course, this is going to be a long-term project that I think will probably be to whatever extent we end up doing it in – a 2020 thing or beyond.”

    He also added, “There are a few big reasons why I'm excited about this and think it'll be good for the user experience, which is the reason that we're doing it. I mean, part of the question was about a commercial benefit, but that really isn't the big focus here. The first reason that I'm excited about this is moving more to end-to-end encryption by default in more of our products.”

    Mark noted that people ‘really like’ the encryption function in WhatsApp and he thinks that to have encryption work in a consistent way across will prove beneficiary. “There are also a number of cases that we see where people tell us that they want to be able to message across the different services,” he said.

    The Facebook CEO emphasised on this matter by citing the example of its popular marketplace feature. He said, “A lot of people are using Marketplace on Facebook now. And a lot of people are using that in countries where WhatsApp is the primary messaging app that they use. So we have these experiences today where we're building Marketplace and you go to message someone to buy something. And the link to basically do the messaging is over Messenger, but in that country, where people really want to be using it, is WhatsApp and we need to make it so that people can communicate across the different networks and graphs that they have or be able to do that integration better in order to facilitate more transactions and connections there.”

  • FB Q4 2018 earnings saw mobile contribute 93% to ad rev

    FB Q4 2018 earnings saw mobile contribute 93% to ad rev

    MUMBAI: Last year saw Mark Zuckerberg-led social media giant Facebook entangled in a number of controversies, especially its privacy policies with the biggest being the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Despite all the negative press throughout the year, the FAANG company has reported strong financial gain in Q4 beating revenue and earnings per share estimations. Daily active users on the social media platform reached 1.52 billion led by growth in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

    Facebook reported 16.91 billion revenue against the estimate of 16.39 billion and $2.38 EPS against $2.18 consensus estimate. The key contributor to revenue definitely remains advertising with $16.64 billion. As the company reported, the year-on-year growth for total revenue as well as ad revenue was 30 per cent. North America, the domestic market of the platform alone brought in $8.25 billion. Notably, the ad revenue growth was strongest at 34 per cent in Asia-Pacific region.

    The number of active users was also slightly higher than the expectations. Facebook reported 2.32 billion monthly active users and 1.52 billion daily active users with a 9 per cent year-on-year growth. Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 93 per cent of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, up from approximately 89 per cent of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017. The platform now has over 7 million active users across all its services.

    “In Q4, the average price per ad decreased 2 per cent and the number of ad impressions served on our services increased 34 per cent. Impression growth was primarily driven by ads on Instagram – including both feed & stories – as well as Facebook mobile news feed. The year-over-year decline in average price per ad reflects an ongoing mix shift towards product surfaces and geographies that monetise at lower rates,” Facebook CFO David Wehner said in a statement.

    Recently, Facebook has started focusing highly on stories across all its properties. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that 2 million advertisers are using stories to reach customers across their family of apps. In the last quarter, the company launched ads in messenger stories too.

    As per the company presentation, daily active user grew in every region including in Europe. While monthly active users stayed flat in North America, it grew in every other region especially in Asia Pacific. The presentation says average revenue per user (ARPU) also grew to $7.37 billion from $6.09 billion in the third quarter.

    The numbers clearly that indicate advertisers have not lost interest in the social media engine despite all the data privacy scandals. Even backlash from governments across the world didn't affect its value much for advertisers.

    "Our community and business continue to grow," Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "We've fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on the biggest social issues, and we're investing more to build new and inspiring ways for people to connect."

    With an attempt to focus more on videos, Facebook Watch entered global markets. Zuckerberg expects 2019 to be the year where Watch becomes more mainstream. “There are now 400 million people who use it every month, and people spend on average over 20 minutes on Watch daily. This means we're finding ways for video to grow outside of news feed so it doesn't displace the social interactions that people primarily come to our services for,” he added.

  • Facebook ties up with Business Standard as part of subscription programme

    Facebook ties up with Business Standard as part of subscription programme

    MUMBAI: American social media giant Facebook has tied up with Business Standard as part of its subscription programme. Facebook on Friday announced that it had added a total of 28 such partners globally, Business Standard being the only one from India.

    In November 2017, the Mark Zuckerberg-founded company had stated it was developing a paywall for subscription publishers to use in ‘Instant Articles’ with the goal of improving subscriber acquisition from the social media site. This newspaper is Facebook’s first India partner for the product.

    Around the world, Facebook has partnered publications including Bild, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Hearst (The Houston Chronicle and The San Francisco Chronicle), La Repubblica, Le Parisien, Spiegel, The Telegraph, Tronc (The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and The San Diego Union-Tribune), and The Washington Post.

    “We have seen consistent, positive performance of paywall ever since our earliest results were announced in June and today we're announcing several updates to our subscription tools, and the addition of 28 publishers to the test,’’ Facebook said in a blog. To make the subscriptions tools more accessible to a wide range of publishers, the company has redesigned the implementation approach to cut the development time by 75 per cent to a maximum of two weeks, it said. Also, the social media major is testing the ability of a publisher to allow a reader to continue reading if he shares his email address.