Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
PressPad, an attempt to bring some class diversity to posh British journalism, is shutting down
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
Jan. 14, 2016, 12:11 p.m.
Mobile & Apps
LINK: www.facebook.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Laura Hazard Owen   |   January 14, 2016

German tabloid Bild is experimenting with delivering news to its readers via Facebook Messenger. The first experiment is limited to “news, background information, and rumors regarding the transfer window of the German soccer league.” (Soccer teams are only allowed to add players twice a year; January is one of those transfer periods.)

Bild messengerUsers can subscribe to the service here or by sending Bild Ticker a message.

Starting Friday, Bild will launch a second news ticker via Messenger, providing news about the German version of the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!

For now, the content delivered via Facebook Messenger is also posted on Bild’s various other platforms and isn’t exclusive to Messenger. Bild wouldn’t disclose how many users have signed up, and it’s experimenting with the frequency of updates.

“Bild has to be where its readers are,” Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of Bild.de, said in a statement. “About 30 million people in Germany experience their daily digital routine on Facebook. That’s why we engage in Instant Articles and that’s why we, together with Facebook, look for solutions to deliver our peerless content faster and smarter to our readers.”

Facebook started letting developers build messenger bots very recently. In addition to delivering news, bots could, for instance, provide customer service or help users book travel.

A Bild spokesman told me he believes Bild is the first publisher to send Facebook Messenger updates with Facebook’s blessing, as evidenced by the fact that Facebook verified Bild’s ticker page.

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
PressPad, an attempt to bring some class diversity to posh British journalism, is shutting down
“While there is even more need for this intervention than when we began the project, the initiative needs more resources than the current team can provide.”
Is the Texas Tribune an example or an exception? A conversation with Evan Smith about earned income
“I think risk aversion is the thing that’s killing our business right now.”
The California Journalism Preservation Act would do more harm than good. Here’s how the state might better help news
“If there are resources to be put to work, we must ask where those resources should come from, who should receive them, and on what basis they should be distributed.”