NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Facebook (FB) - Get Report are up 0.4% to $84.77 in pre-market trading today after it was reported that the social media company is in talks with "at least half a dozen" media companies to publish their content directly to the platform instead of making users clink links to access external sites, according to the New York Times.

Facebook intends to begin testing the new format in the next several months, sources told the Times. The initial partners are expected to be the New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic. The Times and Facebook are moving closer to a firm deal, the source said.

Facebook has reportedly discussed ways for publishers to make money from advertising in conjunction with their content, making the proposal more attractive to publishers.

Separately, the company announced a money transfer option last week. 

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey said it sees several benefits of the product for Facebook, maintaining its "buy" rating and $90 price target on the stock.

"While the new payments feature that is only in Messenger is 'free' (will not be monetized for P2P transactions), we believe the long anticipated feature (after the hiring of former PayPal President David Marcus) could have a large impact on the company in the future," analysts said.

Insight from TheStreet's Research Team:

Facebook is a core holding of Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. During the most recent weekly roundup, this is what Jim Cramer, Portfolio Manager and Jack Mohr, Director of Research - Action Alerts PLUS had to say about the stock:

Shares charged to new all-time highs following the company's announcement Tuesday that it is adding a new feature in Messenger that gives people a "more convenient and secure way" to send or receive money between friends. The company said it will be rolling out the feature over the coming months in the U.S. and indicated the service will be free. We believe this is a great move for Facebook, whether or not it is a direct revenue generator for the company (it looks like it will not be, at least initially).

International money transfer is a $500 billion market (in annual revenue), with $3 trillion exchanged daily across the globe. The demand for such a service, especially within an already established network of 1.4 billion users, is real, and we are glad to see Facebook not only leveraging its ecosystem but deepening it even further. We expect that the move will go a long way in further strengthening Facebook's user engagement, which is already the highest across any site or social network. In fact, we learned this morning that Facebook's share of mobile minutes accelerated to 22% in February, well above its peers at 5%. Its share of total Internet minutes across both mobile and desktop stands at 18% and is over 5x the minutes spent on Twitter and Snapchat. Our target is $90.

-Jim Cramer and Jack Mohr, 'Weekly Roundup' Originally Published on 3/20/2015 on ActionAlertsPLUS.com

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Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates FACEBOOK INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate FACEBOOK INC (FB) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and impressive record of earnings per share growth. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that the company's return on equity has been disappointing." You can view the full analysis from the report here: FB Ratings Report