Facebook partners with NYtimes to publish stories to app

[SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK] Facebook Inc reached a deal with New York Times Co. and other media outlets to publish articles directly to the social network's mobile news feeds.

Stories will load faster to mobile applications and include content from BuzzFeed Inc. and National Geographic, Facebook said on its Website. The company named a total of nine media partners for its Instant Articles service.

The world's largest social network is working to increase the quality of news that appears on its feeds. In the past year, Facebook started weeding out clickbait posts, and started supporting more content from outside the company, such as uploaded videos. That gives it more control over things like download speeds and helps improve the quality of its 1.44 billion active users' experiences.

Meanwhile, news sites are finding that with every tweak Facebook makes to its news feed algorithm, they have to change the way they post content to attract readers at the same rate. Publishers are finding that teaming up with Facebook may be easier than guessing what they'll do next.

Facebook has approached other publishers, including the Huffington Post, about hosting content directly on its site, people familiar with the matter said in March. At the time, the New York Times reported that Facebook was in talks with the paper as well as BuzzFeed and National Geographic.

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