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Executive Says Facebook Will Be All Video, No Text In 5 Years (mashable.com)
Kellen Beck, writing for Mashable: Video must be doing well on Facebook, because an executive at the company just predicted that's all Facebook will be in five years. Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's vice president of European, Middle Eastern and African operations, said at a conference Tuesday that in five years, Facebook "will be probably all video," Quartz reported. Mendelsohn added that video is "the best way to tell stories in this world" and "helps us to digest much more information." Mendelsohn is predicting the obsolescence of the written word, at least on Facebook, according to Quartz. That sounds far-fetched, but consider the way Facebook is decreasing an emphasis on text and diving headfirst into video with numerous recent updates and features.
how stupid
There are countless situations where it is easier and more appropriate to write a short text comment than to make sure you are presentable enough to record video of you saying something.
All video... that is ridiculous.
"helps us to digest much more information."
Yes, if you have the attention span of a goldfish.
Of course, if you're a facebook executive, that's probably the case.
That means that the only users that will use Facebook are people that want videos.
People that do not want videos will not use Facebook anymore.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
this sounds for FB subscribers will have to watch videos of what meals their friends had.
mfwright@batnet.com
No.
It's not the bandwidth-- it's just that video is too damn slow.
I can skim a text post in a second, maybe two. If I slow down to read it, maybe fifteen seconds tops. If I have to watch a video from every person on my friends list-- I just won't.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Ms Mendelsohn,
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
It's quicker to consume text than video. Just an FYI
It's not hard for anyone to write quickly write readable text, like I'm doing now. For me to make a comment like this in video it would either generate a stammering barely understandable video, or require fifteen minutes of planning, rehearsal and editing to make it a reasonable 30 second video, that is still less convent then the 10 seconds you look to read this.
Only thing that makes Facebook remotely tolerable is being able to quickly scroll/skim - same reason I love blogs and dislike podcasts. If I can't skim the content quickly, I'll be looking elsewhere for it.
Furthermore, phone calls are closer to video than text. We had audio phone conversations before we had instant text communication in everyone's hands, and text communication caught on like wildfire as an easier, less intrusive thing to do.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Prior to joining Facebook, Nicola Mendelsohn had an illustrious career in advertising. I suspect that her vision of Facebook is one in which video ads are seamlessly weaved throughout the content you actually care about.
The trouble is that Videobook would dramatically lose information density and become almost unusable as a result.
Facebook executives need to pat themselves on the back for this. Every time I think they can't manage to make Facebook any worse, they come up with some new innovation to make it even more terrible than before. I see now that even that isn't enough for them - they're going above and beyond to make it completely awful. Keep up the good work, guys!
It's been going for over 10 years now - so it#s well into ( the internet version of ) middle age. To look forward to 2021 and try to predict what people will want, how they will act, or what technology will be mainstream is a formula for disaster,
I would suggest that if FB is 100% in 5 years, then in 6 years every FB app will be an AI that people use in order to extract the useful information from all that waffle and wasted bandwidth. it takes megabytes of video to say what a few dozen bytes of text say - and worse: you have to play through a video, linearly. One thing the world seems to be doing is to move away from linear "broadcast" formats.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
...Mendelsohn added that video is "the best way to tell stories in this world"...
Videos have their place. But most of the time, I find the Facebook-type videos move far too slowly for me to stay interested. I'd much rather read a posting than view a video. Maybe I can read more quickly than Mendelsohn, maybe I'm not mesmerized by video technology, or maybe I'm not trying to push the marketplace into a certain direction where my company competes better than others.
.
The day Facebook goes all-video, I'm out of there.
This is their death blow. Like snapchat is fucking useless at conducting chats.
You can already disable video over mobile data on Facebook. VERY useful feature.
Text ads are all but worthless at this point, users are quickly becoming jaded by still image advertising, but an all-video platform provides more opportunities to present video ads which seem to be the latest rage. My cynical side firmly believes that's why Facebook has placed more emphasis on video content lately, and introduced features like autoplaying videos in the news feed.
And yes, it's far-fetched to think that FB will be all-video at any point before they fade completely into irrelevancy. After all, it seems like virtually everything on my news feed at this point is links to clickbait websites, sappy inspirational quotes superimposed over stock photos, and "comment below then put this as your status" copypasta.
FTS: "... consider the way Facebook is decreasing an emphasis on text ..."
Consider the way people seem to be decreasing their use of Facebook and other social media.
If this decrease actually constitutes a trend, and the trend accelerates, then in five years FB will have bigger problems to worry about than encouraging its users to be less literate.
Also, in light of the fantastical nature of Mendelsohn's conjecture, I'd say that Facebook's Kool-Aid is laced with some very powerful hallucinogens.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Have gnu, will travel.
Look, if I wanted an all video experience, I would TURN ON THE TV.
I despise most videos on the internet.
1) You can't have 20 tabs open, because one of them will autostart.
2) The ads invade are far more invasive - taking more attention and of course, more your ears as well as your eyes. And the audio means you can't goof at work ;D
3) You have to consume it at THEIR convenience, not yours - even if you can pause/restart it, it generally means you miss a thing or two. No stopping at will to read an email.
4) In general it takes more brain power, more bandwidth, and more time to consume video than words
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Did they forget about ugly people, or do they plan on restricting their access to their service?
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
I totally disagree. I'd NEVER read and write purely textual comments on any site.
One of my largest pet peeves of internet trends is the posting of a tutorial, review, hands on, or just a small bit of useful information, in a 15 minute video padded by intro, random babbling, and outro, when a couple paragraphs and a few photos would have done.
Count this right up there with 'clean design' filled with useless white space and large typeface and design features.
Is it so hard to ask for nicely laid-out information dense pages that are quickly absorb-able without some annoying person babbling or needing to scroll all over the page? Bah
Furthermore, phone calls are closer to video than text. We had audio phone conversations before we had instant text communication in everyone's hands, and text communication caught on like wildfire as an easier, less intrusive thing to do.
I think the asynchronous nature of text is a bigger contributing factor to it's success than how unobtrusive it is. (reposted because I wasn't logged in the first time)
I do not go to a single major news site. Why not? Because autoplay video. I go to google news, click on an article I want to read, and then instead of the article, I get autoplay video with the article for some stupid reason (CNN, I'm looking at you).
And I have to immediately kill the site. Because I'm at work, where blaring audio of Wolf Blitzer is frowned upon. So, now they are proposing to do the same thing at facebook? Well, there goes another web site. Soon, I'll be reduced to giving up on the web entirely.
I'm thinking LYNX for my smartphone and every computer I own. But too bad I don't control the computer I'm forced to use at work.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
They used to say that "all programs evolve until they can send email."
I propose a corollary: "All web services evolve until they turn into shit-laden advertising platforms and become annoying and irrelevant."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
video is "the best way to tell stories in this world"
Reading is way faster. Show me anyone who has watched a movie after reading the book and preferred the movie.
Jesus wept. Can I get a job at FB as a VP? The bar can't be very high if this is the level of intelligence required.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
So in five years, would that just block facebook?
...
If you recall F541 by ray bradbury you may recall the sad social life of the fireman's wife who lived in a room with four video walls and interacted with her facebook "freinds" / soap operas. Text was not used, indeed it was burned.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.