Facebook to start sharing ad revenue with video creators

by Mark Tyson on 2 July 2015, 12:19

Tags: Facebook

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Videos have become more prevalent as shared content on Facebook over recent months. Video views have multiplied on the platform; from one billion to four billion views per day leading up to April this year. However, for anyone who takes the time to make videos, and would like to make some kind of revenue for their efforts, it has been difficult to decide what to publish to the platform. For these people YouTube is definitely the preferred option as it has made a large number of 'YouTubers' pretty wealthy. Facebook has a massive reach but it isn't as easy to measure any kind of return from publishing a popular video to the site.

Re/Code reports that Facebook is going to become "serious competition" to YouTube this autumn. Starting with big name video creators like the NBA, Fox Sports and Funny or Die it will start a revenue sharing program divided 55/45 in the content creator's favour (just like YouTube). Facebook's VP of partnerships, Dan Rose, told Re/Code that "A lot of [our partners] have said this will be a big motivation to start publishing a lot more video content to Facebook". This is the intention behind the move.

Currently some YouTubers are putting shorter edited videos natively on Facebook – so that they autoplay in the feed and are more likely to be virally shared. Then they provide links back to the monetisable full video edit on YouTube. If Facebook gets its revenue sharing right it could take over as the platform of choice for some of these people.

Facebook's revenue generation methods and sharing isn't very simple though. Video ads will be interspersed between creators' content in a suggested videos feed, and if one of these standalone ads is there among three creator's videos, for example, then the 55 per cent revenue share will be divided among those three - depending upon which one of the videos was watched the most. Facebook won't include pre-roll ads in videos at this time. Facebook will be testing and tweaking the suggested videos timeline and revenue sharing in the next few months.

Facebook's new logo

The WSJ reports that Facebook has changed its logo. A design and branding firm commenting in the story called it "a huge change," which was "driven by mobile". Apparently the slightly less dense lettering with open 'a' reproduces better on a smartphone.

The company itself stated that the change was made to modernise the brand and "make it feel more friendly and approachable". The old logo endured rather well, it remained unchanged since 2005. While the logo is now being updated throughout its offices and official communications the trusty old 'f' favicon will not be changed.

HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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Posted by azrael- - Thu 02 Jul 2015 12:43
"…a huge change,“ which was ”driven by mobile".

I just had another facepalm moment.
Posted by aidanjt - Thu 02 Jul 2015 13:11
Are they going to put some of that ad money into making their video encoding not suck the chrome off a trailer hitch?
Posted by jag272 - Thu 02 Jul 2015 14:09
“Video views have multiplied on the platform; from one billion to four billion views per day leading up to April this year”
Isn't that because they started to make them autoplay, prompting me to install flashblock because I can't visit Facebook without having random sounds start playing from somewhere down the news feed.

Sharing revenue is nice however, though I can't really comment on it too much as I don't really use Facebook, not really the target demographic and certainly don't spend time watching videos on it, but I can't stand the autoplay feature even though its beneficial for my work that autoplay exists.

That said, if flashblock behaves the same as adblock I guess Facebook would know whether the video was actually played or not, in which case the number is much more impressive, and beneficial for my work.
Posted by Saracen - Thu 02 Jul 2015 15:23
Like jag (^^^), I'm not the target demographic, either.

Cards on table …. about the closest I get to social media is HEXUS. I'm also not a fan of the vast majority of video content, especially on social media, because it seems to me that the vast bulk is peurile drivel in which my interest level is well below zero.

HOWEVER …. there are the odd amusing gem, and there is a proportion of constructive and useful how-to type stuff. Of the latter, most is decent, some is dire, and some truly useful and interesting to me.

And it's those final two words that determine my interest, or lack thereof, in social media. It's not presuming that because I think most content is peurile drivel, everybody else will too.

Currently, I'm not a heavy YouTube user. I might watch 10 video items in one session, and not another one for weeks, or months. I'm not a FB user at all, and somehow I don't see that changing. If even that video content that does interest me migrates to FB, I'm far more likely to go without than migrate with it.

What worried me a bit was this comment from the recode link …
…

It’s possible, then, that Facebook might prioritize video advertising over other ad units down the road. Video ads are more expensive, which means more revenue for Facebook, and if that’s what people are watching anyway, then what’s to hold them back? ….

It misses the point that maybe people watch video because it's not (yet) jammed full of adverts.

Companies need to be extremely careful how they seek to monetise consumer-driven trends, or they risk killing the golden goose they're seeking to exploit.

Deriving revenue, carefully is fine. Overdoing it breeds an adverse reaction. I no longer EVER watch TV ads, precisely because they got too obnoxious. Now, I either record and pre-edit to remove ads, or just hit skip, because very rarely do I watch TV live (except, sometimes, BBC) so if I watch a program starting at 9PM, I record (or use live pause) and give it 20 minutes, start watching at 9:20 and skip the ads.

It's a bit like overdosing on some foodstuff to the point that even the smell makes you feel sick. Advertisers so overloaded me I now avoid any and all TV ads on principle.
Posted by jag272 - Thu 02 Jul 2015 16:22
Saracen
It misses the point that maybe people watch video because it's not (yet) jammed full of adverts.

Companies need to be extremely careful how they seek to monetise consumer-driven trends, or they risk killing the golden goose they're seeking to exploit.

Deriving revenue, carefully is fine. Overdoing it breeds an adverse reaction. I no longer EVER watch TV ads, precisely because they got too obnoxious. Now, I either record and pre-edit to remove ads, or just hit skip, because very rarely do I watch TV live (except, sometimes, BBC) so if I watch a program starting at 9PM, I record (or use live pause) and give it 20 minutes, start watching at 9:20 and skip the ads.

Completely agree with this, the whole reason I installed Flashblock was that I got sick of the current trend towards autoplaying flash adverts that Adblock doesnt catch, hell thats the reason I even installed Adblock, I don't care so much for banner adverts though like anyone I'd prefer they weren't there.

I honestly can't think of anything more disruptive than video adverts, youtube gets away with it because you're going there to watch video anyway, if i'm reading an article on a news site (some of them do use video ads) or in the highly unlikely event I find some actual useful info on Facebook (I use Facebook for work and thats about it now) the last thing I want is autoplaying videos making all manner of noises while I'm trying to read and having to hunt the advert down.

While I understand the appeal of video, Facebook (and other companies certainly) need to realise there is a time and place for video. Certainly on written news sites I find it completely inappropriate, prerolling an ad on a news video EG on Hexus videos, while I still wouldn't like it, I would find to be a much more reasonable use of video ads as its not actively harassing you while you try to read.

I guess Facebook is in that odd middle ground, some people use it to have proper discussions, some people use it to watch the latest kitten videos or animals do the silliest things etc. The latter are the target demographic of the autoplaying and the video adverts, but on a platform the size of Facebook I'm not sure they can really afford to be overly specific about their demographic.

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