Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild is preparing to step into the news world. The move was in the air since January, when Facebook started giving more prominence to updates from company pages linking to news items from their own blog sections, rather than photos of their own products. The development was deemed controversial as photos still seem to be the most liked and shared items on Facebook. This change in its algorithm was justified by Facebook as an attempt to promote quality posts from company pages rather than the odd photo and Meme.

Facebook’s new policy on company posts is also regularly debated during the “Hand-on Social Media” and “Hands-on Facebook” courses held by Strategic Communications’ Director Dott. Fabio Giangolini. His opinion has always been that Facebook’s move was based on the need to not cannibalize Instagram (the Facebook-owned social media which is based on photo-sharing) and the fact that Zuckerberg was probably aiming at transforming Facebook into a holistic portal and the first page internet users visit as soon as they wake up in the morning to check news as well as updates from their friends. Dott. Giangolini’s assumption proved correct when last month Facebook announced that it has been holding talks with at least half a dozen media companies about hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users click on a link to visit an external site. Experimentation on the new format will begin in the next months, with the initial partners being The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed and,maybe even The Times.