Is Facebook getting into the news business? Well, yes it might be, according to this post from digital marketing firm Econsultancy.

The author pushes the (surely correct?) argument if the people won’t come to the news, the news has to go the people. And a lot of the people are on Facebook.

No pay…no play?
But, as the post also points out, Facebook has just gone into profit.

No mean feat on the web – but it’s still operating in an environment where people expect everything to be free at the point of use.

So is there enough money in news?

Free (well, cheap) press
There is one theme running through many of these speculative posts on the future of new news outlets: the assumption that there are lots of out-of-work journos out there to staff them on the cheap; and the assumption that there’ll be some kind of relationship between community reporters on the ground (for want of a better description), and the pro journalists filtering their stories.

The Guardian seems to have something along these lines in mind; and there’s this scheme up and running at the Northern Echo.

Interestingly, it seems very nebulous except in the case of the Echo …