Facebook Moves To Enter The Top News Media

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Facebook launched Signal, a free news discovery and curation tool for journalists.

Signal includes tools for automatically embedding news related content from Facebook and Instagram in news stories.

The launch follows other media initiatives including Instant Articles, which allows media companies to publish stories directly on Facebook.

Facebook is also gearing up to become a top player in online video distribution.

Facebook is marching on traditional media at full speed.

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Facebook (FB) isn’t satisfied with being the top social network. It appears that the Internet giant wants to enter the top news media as well. The launch of Signal, a free news discovery and curation tool for journalists, is the latest indication of Facebook’s media ambitions.

“We’re excited to introduce Signal, for Facebook and Instagram, a free discovery and curation tool for journalists who want to source, gather, and embed newsworthy content from Facebook and Instagram, across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more,” notes the Facebook announcement authored by Andy Mitchell, Director of Media Partnerships at Facebook. Mitchell added that the move follows the launch of Facebook Mentions for Profiles as one more step in Facebook’s push to offer useful services to the media.

Saying that Facebook is the top social network is very much of an understatement. Actually, Facebook – which recently had one billion users in a single day – is for all practical purposes the only social network that matters. In July, the company reported in its Q2 earnings that it had about 1.5 billion people logging on at least once a month.

Many companies, small and large, tried to challenge Facebook’s total leadership in social networking, but none succeeded. Google (GOOG) itself had big hopes that its own social network Google+ could compete with Facebook, but Google+ never came even close to Facebook’s popularity, and is still a desert compared to the crowded Facebook meeting point. Recently, Google gave indications that it might be giving up on Google+. With no effective competitors in the social network space, Facebook is diversifying and marching into other sectors at full speed.