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Facebook plans to become video-first

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 02 Feb 2017
Facebook will aggressively focus on video content over the next three years.
Facebook will aggressively focus on video content over the next three years.

Facebook, the world's largest social media network, has said it will concentrate on growing video, especially on mobile, across all its platforms over the next three years.

This was discussed in its Q4 earnings call to investors yesterday just after it was announced the company saw total revenue grow by 51% year-over-year to $8.8 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he sees video as a "megatrend" and one the company foresees further boosting revenue in the near future.

Areas of focus will be live video, live 360 video, live filters and other camera effects, as well as creating a way users with slow connections can view the content.

In 2016, Facebook introduced a dedicated 'searchable' place for video on the platform. A video icon now appears at the bottom of the mobile app. Tapping on this icon takes users to a personalised video stream, like that of the YouTube home screen.

Zuckerberg said Facebook will look for ways to grow the ecosystem of video content on the platform.

"We want people to think of Facebook as a place for interesting and relevant video content from professional creators as well as their friends. Last year, we started to invest in more original video content to help seed the ecosystem, and we're planning to do more in 2017."

Money, money

Zuckerberg explained there are three different types of videos shared on the site:

1. Content that users will produce socially for friends.

2. Promotional content that businesses and celebrities produce.

3. Premium content.

"The creators of the premium content," said Zuckerberg, "need to get paid a good amount in order to support the creation of that content, and we need to be able to support that with a business model, which we're working on."

Earlier this month, it was reported Facebook was testing mid-roll adverts for videos, allowing creators to make money. The business model would see it sell advertisements and share revenue with those who publish the videos.

Facebook said previously it would never have pre-roll adverts on the site, popular on rival YouTube.

The social network relies on users being captivated by video content within a few seconds of it auto-playing in their newsfeeds, pausing their scrolling, and watching the whole video. This would not happen if an advert played first and users had to wait three seconds before skipping it.

Numbers don't add up

The company came under fire last year, when the Wall Street Journal reported it vastly overestimated average viewing time for video ads on its platform for two years.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg assured investors the company was working on a metric to correctly see how many times a video, and adverts within the video, were viewed.

"New platforms demand new measurement, and so people are measuring all kinds of different things from viewability to how many people see the ad to how long they run the ad. We're focused on all of these metrics and working hard with third parties and our advertisers to get those metrics right," she said.

The Facebook team was then asked if there were any possible large video company acquisitions or deals on the horizon, as it plans to supercharge its growth in the video space.

"Our focus is on kick-starting the ecosystem here for the video tab," said Facebook CFO David Wehner.

"We're looking at a wide range of content, and working towards a revenue share model with creators. We're certainly going to be seeding content to get the ecosystem going, but that's not about doing big deals."

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