Facebook News to forge business ties with media outlets: Zuckerberg

Internet has disrupted the business model for journalism and Facebook, with its dedicated News service on its platform, will help news publishers earn and stay afloat in the competitive news era, Mark Zuckerberg has said.

The social networking giant has tied up with 200 news outlets to introduce a dedicated News tab on its platform that will highlight the most relevant national stories of the day.

"There are two things that I'm quite excited about. One is just building a dedicated product space for high-quality news. And the second is having a business partnership with news publishers that I think can be sustainable over the long term," Zuckerberg told analysts over an earnings call on Wednesday.

Facebook will reportedly pay as much as $3 million to licence headlines and previews of article from "major news outlets".

Zuckerberg predicts 20 million to 30 million people could use the News tab in a few years.

"It's no secret that the Internet has disrupted the business model for journalism. And I think that that means that the major Internet platforms have a responsibility to form partnerships and help to fund this work," he said.

The News tab will initially be available to about 200,000 people in some of the largest cities in the US. The social networking platform has hired a team of journalists to help curate major national stories. IANS