Facebook To Introduce Video Ads

another random user writes "Facebook is reportedly introducing video advertisements to News Feeds this summer. Reports in the Financial Times (registration required) say that the clips will last for around 15 seconds, and the first one users see each day will play automatically. The first video will apparently play without audio, and restart if the account holder chooses to activate sound. Facebook is yet to officially confirm the move, but the report claims that the social network will gradually introduce video advertising to minimize user disruption. The company's most lucrative marketing partners, including American Express, Coca Cola, Ford, Diageo and Nestle, are expected to be the first brands to make use of the feature. Facebook is said to have implemented the strategy in a bid to take a slice out of TV ad revenue by undercutting the sector."

Comments

that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[swschrad]

and is likely to result in my pulling the plug. screw 'em.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[i kan reed]

Anyone who sat through previous Facebook abuse will sit through this. They have a monopoly on your friends. That's a hell of a thing to overcome. I deal with it by only ever talking to the friends I'm quite close to and leaving everyone else to themselves in the modern social networking era.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[AliasMarlowe]

and is likely to result in my pulling the plug.

So pull the plug already... Some of us never even got into that squalid bathtub (social diseases, ugh).

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[TWiTfan]

Anyone who sat through previous Facebook abuse will sit through this. They have a monopoly on your friends. That's a hell of a thing to overcome.

Yeah, people used to say the same thing about MySpace.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[icebike]

and is likely to result in my pulling the plug. screw 'em.

What took you so long?
Years of abuse, leaks, privacy violations and lying to you are ok, but one goddamed ad an you are gone?

I'm glad I never signed up for Facebook, and still pissed they mined my information from my airhead
friends that sell me out to them by useing Facebook as their address-book.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[jythie]

I would wager the various adblocking tools will be updated to handle these new Facebook ads pretty quickly. You would think that by now marketers would have learned that people will generally let ads slide as long as they are unobtrusive, but these 'HEY LOOK AT ME!' ones always end up with people either avoiding the site or installing blocking software. These ads just don't work.

I guess we are seeing yet another new generation of marketers learning old lessons, or old marketers who have rising through the ranks and not learned a think for the last 20 years.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't think that HTML5 autoplays have become pesky enough to attract much attention; but Greasemonkey or equivalent should make detecting and neutering Video tags easy enough, even if the browser itself doesn't offer controls natively.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[CRCulver]

Yeah, people used to say the same thing about MySpace.

MySpace only had a small portion of a typical person's friends: younger people, more computer-savvy compared to the general population. With everyone else you stayed in touch by e-mail or occasional phone calls.

Facebook, however, is now utterly entrenched in Western society. Everyone a person keeps in touch with is likely to be on it: friends from all walks of life, relatives both close and distant, professional colleagues. And many of those friends seem to have forgotten about e-mail and expect you to contact them via FB message.

Leaving FB is a lot harder to do than moving on from Myspace or Friendster was years ago. I know for a fact that I'd lose contact entirely with many people if I gave up my FB account.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My suspicion would be that this is just another of Facebook's "Oh fuck, now we have shareholders to answer to" thrashing moves.

They've got crazy pageviews, lots of hours-per-month, and a huge pile of personal information; but they've been learning the hard way that cellphones are cutting into conventional page views(since even the best mobile browsers are still coping with a tiny screen), lots of hours-per-month can only really be monetized by pissing people off with increasingly aggressive ads and upsells, and that huge pile of personal information can be used either to maintain network effects or to scare users in temporarily valuable ways; but it is less obvious that it can be used for both at the same time...

We can only hope that we'll look back at them, as we now do on myspace, soon enough.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Anonymous Coward]

That says something about the value of your friends if they are only willing to use a crappy medium to talk to you. Would you talk to a guy who only talked to you through a bullhorn?

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Luckyo]

Sounds like someone who's a facebook addict.

As someone who doesn't have a facebook account, I can tell you that you're wrong, and you'll likely realise just how wrong you are in judging the importance of facebook when you actually leave it and see that all your friends, acquaintances, people you need to contact... exist here in real life and have email accounts and phone numbers.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[admdrew]

Anyone who sat through previous Facebook abuse will sit through this.

It's reaching a breaking point, even among those who use Facebook heavily. I'm a self-described heavy user of Facebook, but recently removed it from my phone to avoid ads (and the stupid bullshit where the app would still try to pull my GPS location even with 'location' turned off - but I digress).

Not having access to mobile Facebook has been a big personal change, but one I'm generally happy with. I do miss being a "part" of some friend interactions (typically sporting events or other immediately-topical events), but I also feel my smartphone usage is far less compulsive - no longer am I idly checking Facebook on my phone during my commute, "forcing" me to read my book, for example - and it's definitely reduced my "need" to know what's going on immediately at all times. I may have a little easier than others because I never got into Twitter, so my Facebook feed is the 'fastest' social networking I do.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[houghi]

Friends don't let friends use Facebook.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[johanw]

Out? Why? There's nothing here that AdBlock Plus can't fix.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[admdrew]

For some it's really not that easy. Paul Miller's article about leaving the internet for a full year is pretty interesting, and touches on some important aspects of social networking. Facebook enables casual long distance relationships that are often not realistic for many of us. I rarely talk to my best friend from high school on the phone or via text, but we do interact via Facebook pretty frequently. Without that social network link, we would've fallen out of touch over the years - with it, we're able to stay relatively up to date with minimal effort.

Now, do my friends deserve *more* than minimal effort? Of course. But the reality of leaving one's hometown (or college town or longtime employer) makes it unlikely that I'm going to see/call/write those friends of mine on a regular enough basis to keep close connections going, something Facebook has made possible for me.

For those of us with (even mildly) busy lives who have met many wonderful people over the years, social networking has been terribly useful.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be using Linux.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[dcherryholmes]

But email is not one-to-many in the way that FB is. It is point to point, not broadcast. Understand I say this as someone who pines for Usenet daily, has no great love of Facebook, and wishes for something better. I'm also struck by the irony that I'm having this discussion with some faceless person on a web forum (no offense intended, it just runs a bit against the grain of your point).

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Art Challenor]

It's interesting that there was a long discussion previously about how people would not allow "bitcoin-ware" (games support by bitcoin mining - http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/05/02/1850202/ask-slashdot-would-you-accept-bitcoin-ware-apps) because it would cost them, primarily in terms of electricity usage.

At the same time, these ads suck bandwidth and power - notice the fan running on your computer when you have many ad-hungry tabs running - and they don't complain.

Ads, and selling your personal data are an inefficient and irrational way to pay for Internet services, yet if you mandated, say $1/month for Facebook usage, the user base would vanish.

People are wierd.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[dragon-file]

screw 'em.

See you say that, but I don't believe you. Maybe because every time facebook does something like this people say screw them... and go right back to using them in a month.

I haven't used facebook in over 5 years and nothing they are doing is making me regret my decision.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[rudy_wayne]

Out? Why? There's nothing here that AdBlock Plus can't fix.

I don't go to Facebook, i have absolutely no interest in it. but, you are right. This is exactly why AdBlock was created.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[dcherryholmes]

I have a bit of a following on Facebook (mostly political ranty-type stuff, nothing that amazing IMO). Still, more than a few people have told me that my FB posts are their daily news feed, for whatever that's worth. And I kind of despise Facebook for many of the reasons already described in previous posts. Yet I think "social networking" (ugh) has its place and its utility. I like Google+ better. I have wished vocally, on FB, that we would all just migrate together. Last month I decided to just jump myself, and maybe enough people would follow that at least my little zone of friends would still be intact. After about a month of crickets chirping (in a very superior UI, but still), I lamely wandered back to FB. I just want to talk to folks, and am not particularly ideological or religious about it. I imagine this is what it must feel like to be an IT-savvy Windows user.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[CRCulver]

Sounds like someone who's a facebook addict.

I don't care much for FB and rarely post there. I'd be very happy to leave if I knew my friends and family would follow to other means of communication.

As someone who doesn't have a facebook account, I can tell you that you're wrong, and you'll likely realise just how wrong you are in judging the importance of facebook when you actually leave it and see that all your friends, acquaintances, people you need to contact... exist here in real life and have email accounts and phone numbers.

Nope, I've already tried moving back to e-mail. The result is that people rarely respond, because they can't be arsed to log in to e.g. GMail often, whereas if one sends them a message via FB, they perk up instantly. Consequently, I've kept my FB account even if I use it increasingly less.

A friend of mine who left FB entirely last year, with whom I still keep in touch because we both accept e-mail, has bemoaned instantly losing touch with most of his acquaintances. And then mutual friends of ours often ask where he is nowadays, oblivious that he'd like very much to stay in touch with them. He has sent them e-mails, but they just can't focus on e-mail communication.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[mlts]

It isn't that tough to leave. Google+ is getting just as entrenched via apps, web pages, "+1" buttons, and many other items. In fact, I know a number of people who keep both G+ and FB running because both are useful.

If FB disappeared entirely, it can be completely replaced. Even if G+ didn't take over completely, messaging could go back to SMS or one of the IM providers, posts/walls could wind up on livejournal, cat pictures would move to Flickr or some other site, phone numbers and contacts could be shared via Yahoo or iCloud, gifts could be given via Amazon, and third party apps like Farmville would end up either becoming standalone websites, or becoming Metro/Android/iOS apps.

FB has only one thing going for it: It is the US's central watering hole. If the beer gets too watered down, people will go find another dive bar to frequent.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Culture20]

They have a monopoly on your friends.

Yep, and FB has done work to make sure that the monopoly is more secure; they removed the "phone book" feature that used to list your friends contact info, and they changed everyone's listed email to a username@facebook.com email address. Good luck contacting all your old friends you've reunited with via FB unless you manually ask all of them for contact info.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Kleen13]

Just before I disabled my FB account I posted a goodbye message on my wall for people to PM me if they wanted my contact info. It came as no surprise that nobody did. I'm just as unpopular to my "Facebook friends" as they are to me. I don't miss it one little bit and get a real kick out of watching people look at me with bewilderment when I tell them I'm not on Facebook. This world is one EMP pulse away from complete chaos.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that the illusion of friendship is what keeps a lot of people hooked on Facebook. Without it, people are left to the real world where most of the people they are "friends" with on Facebook are not worth the bother of contacting specifically, if the thought of these people ever occurs at all. That, and the knowledge that the feeling is broadly mutual.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Obfuscant]

This is nice for you contacting all your friends, but if your friends are posting on facebook instead of keeping their own list of friend's email addresses like you do, you lose out. You can tell them you miss them, but they'll be wondering why you never respond to poke or wall messages.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Ryanrule]

You overvalue my friends.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine who left FB entirely last year, with whom I still keep in touch because we both accept e-mail, has bemoaned instantly losing touch with most of his acquaintances. And then mutual friends of ours often ask where he is nowadays

If friend's can't be bothered to respond to your emails or telephone, then perhaps they are not your friends at all.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[CodeBuster]

but these 'HEY LOOK AT ME!' ones always end up with people either avoiding the site or installing blocking software. These ads just don't work.

We on Slashdot who use ad blocking are in the definite minority of users out there and especially so on sites frequented by the masses, like Facebook. They know that we block ads but they don't care because 90+% of regular Facebook, Disney and ESPN users don't. If the ads weren't effective, the advertisers wouldn't still be paying for them. I'm actually fine with this arrangement because it means that a sort of détente exists between us and the advertisers. They have no desire to engage us in an arms race of counter measures and counter counter measures while they're still reaching the vast majority of their intended audience, it's not worth it. That may change in the future but for now it seems that nobody wants to fire the opening shots in that war.

Re:that is a massive rip-off of my data allotment

[readingaccount]

Bullshit.

I don't think a lot of anti-Facebook people realize just how much Facebook has become integrated into people's lives and their methods of communication. It is EXPECTED that you have a Facebook account by now. Not having one makes you a social pariah apparently, and you miss out on a ton of things in you friends' lives that you probably won't hear unless you have Facebook. People aren't being rude - it's just a reflection of how society expects everyone to communicate these days. Trying to be different just reduces your social interactions and for no good reason.

You don't have to use Facebook much, though. I don't. I barely ever post since I know no-one will likely respond (you can't compete with attention whores who post every 5 minutes and have 500 friends). But, like Windows, it's better to have it around than to not have it at all.

A whole lotta "don't care"

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's go to a site that requires registration to read an article about a site I don't use that's going to annoy its users attempting to take market share from a medium I watch less and less.

Eurobook...

[UltraZelda64]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5mIm4bPBWE
^ That's what I think of Facebook.

Teevee

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is said to have implemented the strategy in a bid to take a slice out of TV ad revenue by undercutting the sector."

More like mimicking TV and the number one thing about it that made the internet seem like a potentially worthwhile alternative.

This is for your own good!

[Talonius]

Oh, we're sorry. You haven't NOTICED the text and graphical based ads here. Since we know that can't be because you have no interest, we wanted to make it easier for you to see our advertising!

Reminds me of the project managers where I work. "Oh, reality? Fuck that, we warp it to what we think it should be!"

Re:This is for your own good!

[dgatwood]

The ads are already reaching my maximum tolerance now that they started blowing text ads into the middle of my news feed that look like normal posts, but they're not quite annoying enough for me to spend half an hour writing a Safari extension to banish them. But video ads? You get to show me exactly one, Facebook, and then it's worth the half an hour to block all of your ads. All of them.

Darth Zuckerberg

[the eric conspiracy]

I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

Re:This can only end poorly for FB

[earlzdotnet]

I actually saw my first auto-play HTML5 video/audio ad a few weeks ago on my Linux machine(without flash). Even advertisers are starting to understand that Flash is dead, sadly.

Here we go...

[SeaFox]

The new, more obtrusive, more bandwidth hogging ads are coming.
Next will be the increase in frequency and length of ads.
Then the exodus will start.
Then there will probably be a site-wide remake or relaunch to try and get people interested.
By then a new social networking site will be getting hype and half their user will already have an account on it as well.
Then they stop using their Facebook account and start referring people to the other site who contact them on FB.
Then Facebook becomes another ghost ship of abandoned profiles like MySpace.

Re:exactly why AdBlock was created

[DocSavage64109]

I don't know about androids, but there's no adblock for an iphone.

Re:exactly why AdBlock was created

[c-A-d]

There is an Adblock for android, but I have to leave it off or some sites will not work at all.

Make money facebook style

[Dorianny]

Am I the only one that's relieved that for once, facebook announced a way to make money that does not involve selling or abusing peoples personal data?

Millions of users leaving... even before video ads

[knorthern knight]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/28/facebook-loses-users-biggest-markets
http://www.geek.com/news/millions-are-leaving-facebook-every-month-due-to-boredom-1553510/
http://technorati.com/social-media/article/facebook-deserted-by-millions-of-users/

Summary, their oldest markets, i.e. US/Canada/Europe have reached "peak Facebook", and numbers are going down in those older markets. E.g. in the Technorati article...

> Data released by analytics firm SocialBakers suggests that people are
> leaving Facebook in their millions.
>
> It reveals that the social network has shed 6 million US visitors in the
> last month, which represents a 4% fall. The UK fares no better having
> lost 1.4 million users last month, a drop of 4.5%.

> Worryingly for Facebook this is far from a blip. In the last six months the site
> has lost 9 million users in America and 2 million in the UK. There's a similar
> picture across the developed world, with usage falling in Canada, Spain,
> France, Germany and Japan.

Yes, the numbers of well-off North Americans and Europeans leaving will be more than offset by the influx of third-worlders. But that guy or gal in the call centre in Mumbai, or the peasant in Asia, is not worth as much to advertisers as the westerners that they replace.