If you are interested in sharing a video across the Web, you probably start by uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo. Facebook wants in on that action, and as of today allows videos uploaded to the site to be embedded elsewhere.
During an F8 keynote address Wednesday, product marketing manager Deborah Liu announced anyone can now grab the embed code from their Facebook videos. “This dramatically increases the potential reach of your content,” she said.
But not anyone’s ability to make money from video. Upload a clip to YouTube and you can get paid based on views if you let YouTube place ads in it. There’s no such arrangement on Facebook at the moment, although product management director Fidji Simo said the company is thinking about it.
“We know this is very important,” Simo said. “We have started experiments in that space. It’s very, very early. This is a space where we are going to have to take it slowly because we have to figure out the best possible user experience.”
Facebook is also increasing the size of videos allowed to 1.5 gigabytes and allowing uploads to be resumed after a disruption, such as loss of internet connectivity. Brands can now decide to only show a video to users of a certain age or who live in a specific area, and if they take down a video they can still access its analytics. Videos can be scheduled for posting and takedown with new partners like Socialflow. Other partners allow for direct posting to Facebook or traffic monitoring.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the morning keynote that video will likely be the most common type of content uploaded to Facebook within five years. The company recently bumped video views with features like auto-play and more prominent video showcases on pages. Simo noted Facebook is already seeing 65 percent of video views come from mobile devices, making them a priority for her team.
Photo by Owen Thomas for ReadWrite
