Move over paper-boy, there's a new way to get your morning news. The Wall Street Journal has unveiled WSJ Social Beta, a novel way to consume news combining social media and their "WSJ Everywhere" strategy, which aims to make its content more ubiquitous.
The newspaper has launched WSJ Social, a Facebook app that republishes Journal content on Facebook. Thanks to sponsor Dell, all the content on the app will be free for the first month. After that, however, the app will contain the same mix of free and paid content as the WSJ's website.
The basic idea of WSJ Social is to create a news hub where you can read articles recommended by others, as well as share them easily with friends. Creating all of this content within the walls of Facebook also seems to fall in line with the social network's rumored strategy of including more original content such as music and video within the site.
The social aspect of WSJ Social is the crux of the app. For example, the stories you see depends on the likes of other readers who you choose to subscribe to. Other people can also add you as an editor, meaning they will see your Facebook likes of Journal stories. Your role then, becomes that of both editor and reader. Liking stories not only engages you with the article, but shares that content with your followers.
WSJ Social is an original way to really capitalize on the social aspect of news. Choosing the most popular social network site in the world as their platform was a good choice. Now we will see if people stick around to pay for the service, and if other news sources will start launching their own versions.
Here is snapshot of the front page:
