Facebook buys CrowdTangle, the tool publishers use to win the internet

Facebook today announced that it has purchased CrowdTangle, a 4-year-old tool that publishers use to track how content spreads around the web, for an undisclosed sum. By showing its subscribers a kind of real-time pulse of the web, CrowdTangle has developed an outsized but mostly hidden influence on the stories you see popping up in your news feeds throughout the day. The move shows Facebook is continuing to court publishers at a time of continuing uncertainty about how to build sustainable, pro