Facebook Watch, often perceived as a competitor to Google's YouTube, was launched last year in the US to give people a place on the platform to find shows and videos they love from creators and to be able to start conversations with friends, or even the creators themselves.
Now, the company has announced that the service is rolling out globally, which means all users will be able to choose from a whole range of shows, both from established brands and new comers, as they'll also have the ability to preview clips direct from their News Feeds.
Facebook plans to allow creators to feature advertising breaks, given they are able to reach a stipulated metric, and only select publishers had been given the opportunity, with the facility extended only to videos shown to audiences in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
While there will be a revenue split of 55% to the creators and 45% to Facebook, but given that partners can reach a possible audience of billions of people across countries and languages, may translate to huge revenue streams.
According to Facebook, over 50 million people watch at least a minute of video per month in the US, with total time for watching videos haven increased about 14 times since the beginning of 2018.
Albeit, a minute view isn’t really impressive, given the platform’s massive appeal and the fact that Facebook had previously dabbled into multiple streaming formats for publishers.
The company, however hopes to leverage on its advantage against other platforms in helping viewers to interact with one another, to position Watch for success, and coupled with the fact that the service will let users co-ordinate themselves to watch shows together in a fully interactivity channel to boost engagement.
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