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Video streaming is one of Facebook’s fastest growing services but the company plans to expand it even more. As of now, the site boasts with about 4 billion video views a day, but the “Watch Later” button that is currently being tested may boost that figure to a new record level.
People familiar with the matter told us about the new feature, and a Facebook spokesperson recently confirmed the rumors. The button is a tiny tab located in the upper right corner of the video you are currently watching. It is only visible if you hover your mouse pointer over it.
“Watch Later” allows you to save and keep the video for later, which is very similar to YouTube’s similar feature.
If you choose to watch a video later in Facebook, the video is saved in the “Saved” folder on your desktop or in the “More” menu on your smarphone. In 2014, Facebook has rolled out a similar function for posts and links called “Save.”
The “Save” feature allowed users to save videos, as well, but the process of doing it was so complicated that most people gave up. You had to go to the upper-right corner of a post, open the “Save” menu, and click save. “Save” function had also a button interface but only for posts that didn’t have a video.
“Watch Later” button is easier to use. You can either move the mouse over a video to make it appear or it simply pops up when you scroll down over videos in your feed.
Seemingly, the site tries to persuade users to use its streaming video service instead of rival YouTube’s by making it more fun to be around your online friends and interact with the content they post.
And if the move is successful, Facebook will make big profit off of the ads that come along with the video service, experts said. Though video ads are more profitable than static ones and attract bigger businesses, Facebook didn’t focus that much on them.
For instance, the autoplay video ads that pester us on YouTube for years appeared for the first time on Facebook last spring. And Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg might have provided an explanation to the phenomenon. She recently told investors that the company was experimenting with video ads to find a better way of making the relevant to users.
And the “Watch Later” button, which directly inform the company about what users prefer to watch, may just help the social media site achieve that goal.
Image Source: Expat Finder
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