Is Facebook set to become more like Netflix or YouTube? Mark Zuckerberg, on Wednesday, laid out his plans and concepts for the future of Facebook video. He seems to be copying YouTube's ideas and not Netflix. "I see video as a megatrend," he said.
Facebook Is Planning To Be Like YouTube
Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that despite online gossip about longer videos, the short-form video would be the focus of Facebook. This makes sense, according to Andy Hargreaves of Pacific Crest analysts. "Short-form video strategy maximizes Facebook's competitive advantages," Hargreaves said on Thursday.
Companies are willing to pay more for video ads than text or images, which dovetails nicely with Mr. Zuckerberg’s opinion that video is a “megatrend,” as The Christian Science Monitor previously reported. The main focus of Facebook was on kickstarting the ecosystem for the video tab. "We’re looking at a wide range of content,” Facebook’s CFO David Wehner said. To do that, it plans to pay up-front for “seed content,” which will start to draw more viewers to its video offering and make it an established home for premium clips
The tech manufacturer also said that this move of Facebook should take advantage its million user base and personalization tools tin order "to drive consumption in a way that fits with how people use the platform." As reported by Busines Insider, the focus on short-form video blocks Facebook from the likes of Netflix, HBO and other cable TV channels. But Zuckerberg said that there was a big future for "premium" video on Facebook, which also means that he is centering the large pool of money dedicated to advertising on TV.
Why Choose YouTube Over Netflix?
Facebook's video opportunity for a genuine YouTube competitor is a very significant one, according to an analyst. This strategy of Facebook is likely to increase company's direct competition with YouTube for ad budgets. All users should expect that it will be successful for the new video tab to continuously morph into its own standalone app similar to Facebook Messenger.
Sine Facebook main focused is on video revenue share agreements rather than acquiring/licensing rights, which Netflix doesn't have but seen on YouTube, it will not going to be easy for the social network to get the TV-quality programming on its platform by just splitting the ad revenue. It should get the type of premium and high-quality standard content that exists on YouTube, and which sits somewhere in-between an amateur production and a TV show. That kind of video is not that attractive like in stealing away TV ad dollars.
How Will Facebook Achieve Its Goal?
As of now, Facebook's content will likely be just clips that users watch on the spot, the moment the video grabs their attention. That means the video will be as short as possible. From the internal data, Facebook knows that Facebook users tend to stumble upon videos seen in their news feeds and watch them immediately.
To succeed in this move, Facebook would have to go out and buy TV-quality shows to put on its platform, as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon does. But Wehner said a clue on Wednesday's earnings call by saying that Facebook wasn't looking to do any "big deals," and that insofar as it would license TV shows, it would just be to seed for the ecosystem.
