Media outlets urged to 'Share Stories' at Facebook

Facebook sought to entice media outlets to post more news stories at the leading social network Monday, helping pinpoint promising pieces—a tactic aimed at combating Twitter.

A "Stories to Share" feature added to Facebook pages of news organizations was designed to find engaging stories and let them be shared, according to vice president of media partnerships Justin Osofsky.

"For instance, TIME can see suggestions of stories they have published to TIME.com but they have not yet shared to their Facebook fans," Osofsky said in a blog message.

"They can now easily post any of those suggestions to their page."

The new software tool has Facebook elbowing further into Twitter territory as an online venue for real-time insight into breaking news.

A week-long trial with 29 media sites showed that teasing stories or links at Facebook pages raised the amount of traffic to news websites by nearly 90 percent, according to Osofsky.

"Over the past few months, we've worked particularly closely with news and publishing sites to understand how we can help drive more readers to their sites," he said.

© 2013 AFP