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Facebook To Stop Paying Publishers To Make Live Videos (recode.net)
Last year, publishers worldwide began making live videos on Facebook. The social juggernaut had cut deals with them, offering lofty amounts and promising big future moving forward. Turns out, Facebook's experimental project is over. Recode reports: Facebook spent more than $50 million last year paying publishers and celebrities to create live video on the social network. Now numerous publishers tell Recode that Facebook is de-emphasizing live video when it talks to them. And none of the publishers we've spoken with expect Facebook to renew the paid livestreaming deals it signed last spring to get live video off the ground. Instead, Facebook is pushing publishers to create longer, premium video content as part of a larger effort led by Facebook exec Ricky Van Veen. The hope is to get more high-quality video onto the platform and into your News Feed -- the kind of stuff, presumably, you might find on Netflix.
It has long been proposed that TV and "social" could merge. There have been experiments with Twitter and TV shows (tune into the Show & Twitter and the director and main actors will be responding to tweets). Attempts to bring the viewers together and make the show more engrossing. Could FB be trying to merge the two on a single platform?
For awhile now I've just been speed scrolling through my feed - lots and lots of posts and nothing to watch (sounds like cable TV right?!) I figured I just wasn't the social type and peeked to stay in the know.
But I noticed my wife doing the same thing last night and putting her iPad down to read a book.
Maybe FB "see's" this and is concerned. Gotta keep eyeballs on the stream to feed the ad engine. The more I think about it - FB offers very little. A fun way to keep in touch with friends and family...yes. However I'm either tinkering with something, playing with the children, watching Netflix, or reading a book. Or doing Work!! Work!! Sorry boss just walked by.