Are social reading apps losing steam?

Are social reader apps really taking a nosedive in popularity—or are folks just misreading a recent report? The blogosphere was abuzz after numbers from AppData.com revealed that social news apps lost a significant amount of active users in April. Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici pointed out that the Washington Post’s social reader app lost more than 50 percent of its users in April. If that trend is “genuine and not some kind of blip, the Post needs to completely re-evaluate the assumptions underlying its digital distribution strategy. And fast,” he wrote. Then BuzzFeed’s John Hermann reported that others, such as the Guardian and Yahoo, saw similar declines.

But others were skeptical of coming to such a quick conclusion. “[S]omething seems off about these numbers when you look more closely,” wrote Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman. TechCrunch’s Josh Constine said the decline was likely due to changes Facebook made to its news feed. “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,” he explained. CNET News’ Daniel Terdiman said that explanation makes sense, especially given the calamitous drop-off in such a short period of time. “Still, many people seem turned off by the tools, and this may be a good example of function following form,” he added. And GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram pointed out that it all shows just how powerful Facebook is. “That in turn reinforces a lesson media companies need to keep in mind at all times: namely, that Facebook is the information gatekeeper now, and you are just a provider—and only one of many,” he wrote.

• Was April 10 doomsday for Washington Post, Guardian Facebook apps? (Poynter)

• The decline of social-news apps and Facebook as a gatekeeper (GigaOm)

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

• Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing (BuzzFeed)

• Desperate Newspapers Pin Hopes on Annoyed Readers (SFWeekly)

• Facebook social reader usage crashing and burning (CNET News)

• Facebook’s social reader apps nosedive in popularity (The Verge)

• The Washington Post Is In Even Worse Shape Than You Think (Forbes)

• Haters frustrated by reasonable explanation for social reader apps’ sudden decline (Poynter)

• Facebook: Social Reader Usage May Be Down, But Engagement Is Up (Mashable)