Decline Of Reader Apps Likely Due To News Feed Changes, Shows Facebook Controls The Traffic Faucet

No, Facebook news reader apps aren't declining because?users suddenly got fed up with auto-sharing. The user loss is likely due to the transition to?"trending articles", a new way of surfacing recently read articles in the news feed that Facebook is testing. Update: The Washington Post confirms my hypothesis: "Social reader "collapse" is b/c of evolving FB modules. Before: "double-double," 4-5 stories down in a list, w/ friend icon - drove growth." Previously, Facebook had been driving huge numbers of installs and re-engagements to news reader apps with a "recently read articles" box that would often appear at the top of the news feed. But in mid-April following a massive reader app user count spike it replaced this with a redesigned "trending articles" box that shows fewer articles, and that seems to appear less prominently. The transition period where Facebook may not have been showing any "recently read article" box is likely to blame for the decline, along with a leveling off from the spike and reduced traffic from a weaker "trending articles" design. What the these user count?fluctuations?really mean is that Facebook is in firm control of what apps and content types receive traffic from its news feed.

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