Here are a few of the new features that were announced as part of the Facebook news.
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Video is rapidly becoming a cornerstone technology for Facebook. It’s a clear and direct threat to YouTube’s core selling point as the “world’s biggest video site”.
BBC reported that among the new features, users watching a video users can swipe upwards to switch to a different clip. He goes on to say that, the feature is for people that would rather watch videos alone instead of having to deal with tons of baby picture, homemade dishes, and unending musings from Aunt Sally.
Facebook has also been experimenting with 360 degree videos, which will eventually help introduce the company’s virtual reality initiative with Oculus. It also included various methods to get video creators to pay and protect their video.
Currently, while videos can play automatically on Facebook, they are no longer visible and will stop playing once the user scrolls down to other stories present in the newsfeed.
While it’s clear that the social media giant is aware of the increased popularity of video services and the high views on the network, we are not sure what exactly it has in mind. They also provide a lucrative opportunity for the company as advertisements slowly shift from the traditional TV ads to the Internet. In early August, the company announced a new live video experience.
Facebook is throwing down the gauntlet to Google’s YouTube through a news feed dedicated entirely to the visual medium.
In addition, the company has made a new section that lets users save their favorite clips. Users don’t often search for videos; they are usually tagged in video posts by their friends or discover them on their News Feeds.
The introduction of a video section on Facebook follows a recent suggested video trial for iPhone users, created to make it easy for users to discover multiple related videos in a row after tapping a video from the News Feed.
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Facebook now rivals YouTube by serving up 4 billion videos each day, majority watched on mobile devices.
