[padseeker]

There is active discussion right now internally about this issue. We're not the only newspaper seeing this decline in views from facebook.

I'm not here to whine. The news business is what it is. We rely on outside sources to drive our traffic. Traffic means eyeballs which translates into ad revenue, hopefully anyway.

When google changes its algorithm that might hurt our web traffic we have to respond accordingly. SEO people have all kinds of discussions, and write articles, when google makes a change. This article is something similar.

It seems like facebook has been changing their algorithm determining what appears in a user's feed, which is effecting our traffic. The same efforts we put in 6 months ago using facebook are having diminishing returns. The point of the article is its effecting us, and apparently not just us.

Whether facebook will address this issue, either in public or private remains to be seen. However I see there is an advantage of talking about it publicly, to determine if it is just us (it's not) or if its affecting others (apparently it is) and what can be done to remedy the situation.

On a side note I like DNAinfo as their content is hyperlocal. It's probably harder for the Chicago Tribune to do that.