Facebook is testing a news subscription tool for its Instant Articles mobile feature. But the social networking giant is only testing the paywalled news service on Android devices, as Facebook and Apple are reportedly at odds over how money from those subscriptions will be divvied up among the tech companies and publishers.
Facebook announced on Thursday that the news subscription tool is launching over the next few weeks with a group of 10 media partners around the world, including Germany’s Bild and Spiegel,The Boston Globe, The Economist, Hearst (The Houston Chronicle and The San Francisco Chronicle), Italy’s La Repubblica, France’s Le Parisien, The Telegraph in the U.K., Tronc (The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune), and The Washington Post.
As part of the test, some Android users will be directed from Facebook’s mobile Instant Articles to sign up for subscriptions directly with those news publishers. The publishers will have the option of either a metered paywall, where they require Facebook readers to pay for a subscription after they’ve read 10 articles from that particular outlet, or a “freemium” model that makes certain articles available to read for free while others remain behind the publisher’s paywall.
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Coins2Day reported in July that Facebook was planning a test for the news subscription tool as part of the social media company’s push to improve its relationship with the news publishers whose articles populate Facebook’s Instant Articles section but who have complained about not seeing enough of a return for using the social network to distribute content. The push is part of the Facebook Journalism Project the company launched earlier this year.
“This initial test will roll out on Android devices, and we hope to expand it soon,” the company said in a blog post announcing the test.
It is notable that the early tests exclude Apple’s iOS devices, but Recode reports that Apple is balking at Facebook’s desire to hand over all of the money from news subscriptions directly to publishers (in fact, Facebook’s model sends readers to publishers’ websites to actually pay for a subscription), as CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously promised. Apple typically insists on getting a 30% share of money from subscriptions sold within iOS apps such as the Facebook mobile app.
Coins2Day contacted Facebook for additional comment and we will update this post with any response.