Dive Brief:
- Facebook has made no secret of its focus on video and its new “floating video” feature continues the trend.
- With the new feature, Facebook users can detach videos from their news feed to continue watching the video while scrolling through the feed.
- In other Facebook video news, TV networks are adding the social media platform to its video sampling offerings, encroaching into YouTube’s territory.
Dive Insight:
Facebook has been making changes, such as rolling out a new mobile-friendly logo, and also placing a new emphasis on video, currently testing potential changes to how it charges video advertisers and also announcing it will begin sharing ad revenue with video partners. The latest video announcement is a new feature for Facebook users – “floating video” where users can detach a video from their news feed via an icon on the video control bar that allows them to keep watching the video while continue scrolling their news feed. According to Digiday, a Facebook spokesperson said the social network's users had asked for the ability to simultaneously watch videos and keep surfing the news feed.
Facebook’s video-centric attitude is bearing some fruit; the social media platform is a significant distributor of video and TV networks are taking notice, branching out from YouTube when releasing samples of new shows. Online teasers on Google-owned YouTube and Facebook are indicative of a larger trend according to James Nail, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, “Right now, the world of video content distribution is right on the edge of total chaos.”
Most notably, if the tactic proves successful with users, Facebook could sell more video ads.
