The Wall Street Journal is launching a Facebook app today that will draw from Journal content to create a socially oriented news publication housed on the popular site, according to a report.
With the new WSJ Social app, readers will choose to follow various streams--some curated by staff, others by fellow readers--which will determine what stories they see, writes Forbes reporter Jeff Bercovici. Readers with the most followers will be eligible for prizes.
The Journal will get all revenue from ads within the app, and Facebook will place ads around it. Paid content on the Journal's Web site will still require a subscription to be seen as part of WSJ Social, though a Dell sponsorship will make all content free for a month after launch.
With a daily circulation of more than 2 million, the Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States.
The app reflects the Journal's desire to have a presence where more and more people are spending their Internet time. And as Bercovici points out, the app serves Facebook's goal of becoming a content hub that will attract people to its blue-and-white chunk of the World Wide Web and keep them there--as advertising targets and potential consumers.
This content focus seems to be shaping up as the centerpiece of Facebook's F8 developers conference happening Thursday in San Francisco. According to various reports, music services; film and TV streaming companies; and publishers are all partnering with Facebook to offer ready access to content through the social network.