Facebook News Facebook launches in the UK

Facebook News was launched today in the United Kingdom, the first country outside the U.S. to receive the currant news portal.

Accessed via a dedicated tab in the mobile Facebook app, the portal features content allowed from hundreds of local and national media outlets including The Keeper, The Economist, The Independent, Channel 4 News, Sky News, Daily Mail Group, and Financial Times, among others.

Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that he will work with a service called Upday to keep the stories that appear on News:

“The result is a combination of retention, key stories and personalized links selected by an algorithm,” a spokesperson said. Upday appears to be a collaboration between German publisher Axel Springer and Samsung, which also runs a news service on its powered phones.

It’s not clear what the financial terms of the deal between Facebook and Upday are, but reportedly, the licensing contracts that Facebook is cutting with publishers to put their content in News together are running into the tens of millions of pounds, with the largest publishers making millions of years from the deals. While these figures may be similar to what Facebook is doing in global advertising revenue – that reaches tens of billions of dollars per quarter – they are represents huge sums for the bereaved UK media industry.

Similar to the US version, Facebook News works by bringing together edited stories and articles editorially based on what users read, share, and follow on the web. social network. Users will also get controls that allow them to hide topics or publishers from their food, according to Facebook.

The company says it is currently negotiating with partners to launch the feature in France and Germany, with Brazil and India also in the sights.