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SBS journalist and social news hound Rhiannon Elston zeroes in on the topics of the day.

Guardian ends Facebook 'social experiment'

14 December 2012, 12:33 PM | Source: RE

British media outlet the Guardian has announced plans to shortly kill off its Facebook-integrated social reader, a little more than a year after it first launched in September, 2011.

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British media outlet the Guardian has announced plans to shortly kill off its Facebook-integrated social reader, a little more than a year after it first launched in September, 2011.

Anthony Sullivan, group product manager for the Guardian, called the joint Facebook social reader venture “an experimental social news experience” in a post on the news site on Thursday.

The reader allowed users to view and share news articles within Facebook, and generated an estimated 6 million active users at its peak.

The decision to kill the Facebook app appears to be a move to direct some of that traffic back to the Guardian’s own website, which would allow for greater revenue generation.

“We have decided to switch our focus to creating more social participation for our users on our own core properties, beginning with guardian.co.uk,” Sullivan said.

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