The social media giant Facebook is planning to compete with Netflix by creating its own original video content, including scripted and unscripted shows.
Facebook Video Content Creation
The social media company Facebook has decided to explore the original content arena. On Wednesday, Dec. 14, the Menlo Park, Calif., company announced that it plans to tap partners in order to create video content for Facebook's new Video tab rolled out earlier this year. The task will be managed by Ricky Van Veen, head of Facebook's global creative strategy.
According to The Street, Van Veen said in a statement that the social media company aims to start an ecosystem of partner content for the tab. Facebook is exploring funding some seed video content, including sports content, scripted, as well as both licensed and original scripted content. This way, the social media giant will be able to take advantage of mobile and the social interaction unique to its social media network.
According to Tech Crunch, right now, video on Facebook is a pretty scattered experience and the content is mostly interspersed throughout a user's timeline and on individual pages' dedicated sections. The video tab added by Facebook to the site earlier this year is still not really a very popular destination like video sites, apps or outlets. By creating their own library of original content Facebook could chart a better path towards monetization on its social media platform.
Previous Facebook Video Initiatives
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Facebook has become already a major destination for video with its users watching on their news feeds a total of 100 million hours of video daily. The company has shown in the past its willingness to invest money for video content creation. For instance, in March, Facebook signed contracts with nearly 140 celebrities and media companies, including The New York Times, CNN, Deepak Chopra, Gordon Ramsay and Kevin Hart, to create videos for its Facebook Live streaming service.
Facebook has no creative license in what was ultimately produced by funding live streams. But Van Veen's new project is different and it will give the social media company the chance to decide what sort of content is created.
