Facebook to sidestep YouTube
Facebook is where you watch videos you weren’t looking for. And now it’s looking to supercharge discovery through friends via a slew of new feature tests including a dedicated Video feed with separate channels for clips shared by friends, Pages you Like, Trending videos on Facebook, clips you’ve Saved, or videos you’ve already watched.
The test sees the Videos button replace the Messenger button at the bottom of the iOS app’s home screen, though this test is only showing to a few people, and probably wouldn’t be made so prominent in a final version.
The Videos feed creates a lean-back, non-stop viewing experience that’s perfect for the couch, and that complements the sporadic viewing of clips found in the main News Feed. You scroll down through the channels, and horizontally through different clips in each channel. Facebook tells me “We can totally imagine bringing it to other platforms” like smart TVs.
The Video feed joins several other discovery features and tests Facebook’s been trying over the last two years, including Suggested Videos, docked picture-in-picture videos for multi-tasking, and an option to Save videos for later.
Facebook sees video as the natural progression from text to photos, and the stepping stone to virtual reality. Along with the release of new 360-degree VR-style videos, Live streaming from celebrities, and ways for video creators to protect their art and even get paid for it, Facebook is determined to grow its video prowess.
It had 4 billion views a day in April, and is probably past 5 billion a day now. Not only do organically uploaded videos enrich its social network, but they give Facebook opportunities to slip in its lucrative video ads as dollars shift away from TV.
By showing related videos and others you might like, Facebook can keep you engrossed it its most vivid and potentially lucrative content format. Facebook is now show video ads in the Suggested Videos reel as well, creating new inventory outside the News Feed for branded spots. It’s also running a pilot program where certain high quality video makers can get a cut of that ad revenue if their clip keeps people tuned into the Suggested Videos reel.
If you don’t have time to give a clip you discover your full attention, Facebook has been testing since July a way to let you shrink the video to thumbnail size and dock it in the corner of the screen as you keep scrolling the News Feed. This could be especially powerful for music videos, allowing you to soundtrack your social networking, and pop back into full-screen viewing if something catches your eye.
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