Facebook favors 'high-quality' articles over memes in updated news feed algorithm

Facebook wants to make its mobile News Feed surface better, smarter content. With an updated algorithm that it says will be rolling out soon , the mobile News Feed will begin to do a better job of surfacing "high-quality" articles that readers are likely to click on. At the same time, Facebook is also hoping to demote "meme photos" and ostensibly other over-shared links that aren't as informative.
Facebook also says that it will begin promoting more news articles to users, as it's found that people enjoy coming across them. It'll also begin displaying relevant articles beneath links in the News Feed that readers have just opened in the hope of directing them to something else of interest.

Though Facebook doesn't go into detail about what types of articles it'll be trying to avoid, the announcement comes as short-form content sites like Upworthy and Viral Nova have begun filling users' feeds with articles defined by their provocative headlines — a feat that's garnered plenty of attention. Facebook doesn't say that it'll be removing any articles from the News Feed entirely, but it does say that lower-quality links will begin showing up less prominently as it places better articles up front. While the changes should make for a pleasant improvement to readers, it'll also be important as Facebook continues to battle Twitter to become those readers' go-to source for finding news.

10 examples of Poor Display Banner and Landing Page combinations from Arabia

Digital Advertising spend in Middle East is predicted to hit $1 Billion by 2018 but the question is if advertisers are really making this advertising spend work for them? Display banner advertising is a major component of this spending and average click-through rate of display ads is 0.1%. (Source:DoubleClick) yet advertisers consider it an important part of their digital media strategy.

Display ad and the landing page goes hand-in-hand but often advertisers forget about the landing page and they just ignore the experience a visitor will have once he/she lands on the landing page and what they want these people to do once they land.

Let’s look at some of such examples below:

Advertiser: Bradley Wiggins

Advertiser: Novotel Hotels UAE

Advertiser: Swiss Quote

Advertiser: Sandisk

Advertiser: Standard Chartered Bank UAE

Advertiser: Union National Bank UAE

Advertiser: Lexus / Al-Futtaim Motors UAE

Advertiser: Toyota / Al-Futtaim Motors UAE

Advertiser: Volvo / Al-Futtaim Trading Enterprises UAE

Advertiser: Volkswagen / Al Nabooda Automobiles UAE

Banner ad & the landing page acts like Salesman & the Showroom – if one of them is not good the chances of that sale to happen becomes less and with such low CTR rates it immediately becomes obvious that how important it is to engage/convert that potential customer who have clicked on the ad but above examples just proves that some advertisers are really not concerned about it at all.

These are just handful of examples and if you keep a close watch around you’ll see tremendous amount of examples like above which proves that a lot of marketers here just consider putting up a piece of advertising online but what happens as a result of that advertising spend is not a concern.

This Shop Is Creating Films for Google Glass Decon's focus on content creation attracts both brands and media

Specs

Who Partners, from left: Sacha Jenkins, svp of culture and entertainment; Peter Bittenbender, co-founder and CEO; Alma Geddy-Romero, vp of development; Misha Louy, executive producer; and Jason Goldwatch, co-founder, director, photographer
What Production company
Where New York

An ad shop more or less by accident, Decon started as a production company, became a record label, and now defines itself a “creative studio” specializing in content. Each of Decon’s five partners adds a distinct flavor to the mix, from music and TV production to journalism and marketing, and that diversity is its stock-in-trade, attracting clients including Google (via Anomaly), Absolut, NBCUniversal and Nike. To wit: Decon is creating spots for Google Glass using that technology, recently reunited legendary rap group A Tribe Called Quest for a tour, and owns the rights to the song “A Beautiful Mine,” aka the Mad Men theme.

Omnicom Media Group restructures digital offering

Omnicom Media Group has restructured its digital operations in the MENA region, with all digital specialist services previously provided at a group level now being rolled into one brand.

Resolution, OMG’s third global network, will take over responsibility for social media and mobile marketing services, adding to its search, programmatic buying, content marketing and behavioral targeting offering.

The move means Resolution’s headcount and billings will more than double in size less than a year after opening. It had officially begun operations in January this year.

The unit will be headed up by managing director Dimitri Metaxas, who was previously OMG’s executive regional director of digital. He will report directly to Elie Khouri, CEO of OMG MENA, and has been tasked with reorganising the newly integrated teams in Dubai and across the region. A priority will be to attract additional talent, create new services and develop more synergies with Annalect, the group’s data and analytics consultancy.

One of the first new employees is Christos Solomi, previously at AOL, ValueClick, EA Games and Ikoo, who has joined the team as head of performance.

“We have long invested in our digital product, as the significance of this to our clients, industry and future has never stopped growing since the early days of OMD Digital back in 2006,” said Khouri. “With Resolution, we now have the opportunity to strengthen our position further and develop the brand as our flagship performance, social and mobile marketing agency. To do this successfully, we are bringing together our specialists in this field under the Resolution umbrella.”

Metaxas added: “The ‘new’ Resolution is the result of not only a vision of what the future of marketing looks like but also the understanding of what brands need in the current and future media landscape. As marketers would rather not have to compromise between integrated thinking and expertise, our solution provides them with both. We had the experts and we’ve now organised them as one team, in order to further enhance the opportunities for and benefits of joined-up thinking in the digital and data-driven media landscape. This is a hugely exciting development for us and our clients’ brands.”

As well as handling direct clients, Resolution will work with the teams at OMG’s agencies OMD and PHD.