Zuckerberg: Most of Facebook Will Be Video Within Five Years

jfruh writes: Facebook recently held its first ever town-hall meeting in which Mark Zuckerberg took questions from the general public, and one of his answers might raise some eyebrows. When asked if the increasing numbers of photos being uploaded might strain the company's servers, he said the infrastructure is more than up to the task, because they're preparing for the notion that "in five years, most of [Facebook] will be video."

Comments

No.

[kuzb]

I find it increasingly more and more difficult to take Zuckerberg seriously.

Re:No.

[i kan reed]

Oh no. How ever will a CEO of a fortune 500 company be taken seriously if not by slashdot user kuzb?

Re:No.

[itzly]

All it takes for facebook to fail is for ordinary users walking away in sufficient numbers.

Re:No.

[i kan reed]

Uh, yeah. So?

Re:No.

[Austerity Empowers]

How do you know kuzb wasn't trying to spell "flamingo"?

Re:No.

[phantomfive]

Worth mentioning, there's a difference between asserting it will all be video, and preparing your infrastructure for that possibility.

That said, Zuckerberg (and every other website operator) hopes it will all be video, because video ads tend to make more than static. That's why every website from MSNBC to Slashdot have suddenly tried creating video content, even when it makes no sense.

Re:No.

[TubeSteak]

Worth mentioning, there's a difference between asserting it will all be video, and preparing your infrastructure for that possibility.

I tracked down the webcast and the question is asked ~34 minutes in.
Here's what he actually said, beyond the snippet being quoted everywhere

5 years ago, most of facebook was text and if you fast forward 5 years, probably most of it is going to be video, just because it's getting easier to capture video of the moments of your lives and share it [...]

He then talks about the news feed ranking your stories.

Every day there are about 1,500 stories that are shared with you and the average person will only look at about 100 a day, because that's all you have time for

In 5 years, if everything on facebook is video, the average person is sure as hell not going to have time to interact with 100 videos per day.
Unless they copy Vine, a richer video experience on facebook will necessarily mean that you interact with less people per unit of time.

Re:No.

[tlhIngan]

That said, Zuckerberg (and every other website operator) hopes it will all be video, because video ads tend to make more than static. That's why every website from MSNBC to Slashdot have suddenly tried creating video content, even when it makes no sense.

Plus, video ads are less blockable because users run the real risk of blocking the content they wish to see as well. That's why they pay more. And you can make them unskippable and all that too.

Why do you think all the TV networks have embraced putting TV shows online? Because they realize they can put ads on the stream and the user has to sit through them (or go to the bathroom). Either way, they can't fast forward through them like they can on a DVR.

Re:No.

[Em Adespoton]

Who the fuck has the time to look through 100 FB stories a day???

the average person will only look at about 100 a day

Nobody; they look at the headlines and then add 100 comments, just like here on slashdot.

So long as it does not autoplay.

[QuietLagoon]

Autoplay HTML5 video is the scourge on the Internet. Is there a way to stop it?

Re:So long as it does not autoplay.

[i kan reed]

adblock rule: ##video

Any other problems that can be solved really easily?

Re:So long as it does not autoplay.

[Nyder]

adblock rule: ##video

Any other problems that can be solved really easily?

World peace?

But of course!

[darkain]

And in five years, we'll all be using a system where we wave our hands around in the air to do gestures to control our computers! /sarcasm

How cute!

[Lumpy]

Zuck thinks that Facebook will be relevant in 5 years.... how ADORABLE!

Re:Most of Facebook is moms reposting the same jok

[i kan reed]

Zuckerburg is looking to kill youtube.

Unfortunately, Google's own social network beat them to the punch.

In five years

[93 Escort Wagon]

Facebook will be completely irrelevant to the vast majority of people - pretty much where MySpace has been for the past half-decade.

Seriously - Facebook's user base is rapidly skewing older and older. When I mention Facebook to a young person, they generally either say they aren't on it at all anymore, or they say they only get on Facebook to stay in touch with their older relatives (mom, dad, grandma, etc.).

And, at least right now, there doesn't appear to be one dominant site where everyone under thirty has landed. Some hang out on Tumblr, some on Instagram, some only do SnapChat (I realize that's not a "site"), etc.

Re:In five years

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you were one of the Facebook bashers who ran around here chanting that GoogleMinus was going to make Facebook die a few years back too.
 
You know, we get it, you hate Facebook. Fair enough. I can't say I blame you. But after a decade and a half of listening to the Slashdot peanut gallery I've come to realize that the only way you guys would ever make a million dollars in business is if you started with a billion dollars.
 
While Facebook isn't exactly going gangbusters it is still increasing its user base. This talk that it's dead and we should stick a fork in it reeks of the same kind of mentality that makes investors pull their money out of a company because they're only showing a 10% increase in revenue and not 20%. Nothing more and nothing less than knee jerk nonsense.
 
See you around when the next Facebook article appears here and you come up with nothing but a handful of crap to sling as justification for why you think Facebook is failing.

In 5 years, most facebook will be...

[roc97007]

...unseen by me. I don't want to sit through video. I *can* read, although it seems like most Facebook denizens can't write.

When I poke a link to a news item, if it leads to a video, rather than waiting for the commercial to load and play, and the talking heads to stop self promoting and get to the point, I've long since dismissed the tab and found the news item somewhere else as text.

The more Facebook forces video, the less interesting it is.

And of course, Google will copy everything Facebook does, so G+ will be screwed also.

I'm going back to Usenet. run-on puns were better than this. (It was just a capital-K to get rid of them.)

Ain't nobody got time for that

[unfortunateson]

Seriously? 90% of Facebook is currently graphics certainly not worth 1000 words: they literally are about eight to thirty words, total, with some public domain clipart or unlicensed pop-culture icons. I don't do "meme pictures." If I have a message, I type it.

I've never understood the point of podcasts other than for music or other performance: If I want news, I can read it in 1/10th the time.
And video? What, am I deaf and need to see your body language and lips move? Sure, for educational, entertainment clips, and of course cute animals... but otherwise? Nope.

And get off my lawn.