Facebook now Hits 1 Billion Video Views Daily on the Average

Facebook revealed on Sunday that its users have viewed an average of 1 billion videos each day on the social network since June. Roughly two-thirds of those views are happening on mobile.

"The goal of News Feed is to deliver the right stories to the right people at the right time, from the people and things you care about," Fidji Simo, Facebook's project management director for video, wrote in a blog post. "And more people than ever before are seeing, sharing and expressing themselves with video on Facebook."

Much of that growth is Facebook's own doing. The company has worked make it easier for users to share videos on site in order to roll out video advertising without it being too jarring to users. Facebook has enjoyed at least a little bit of luck, though: The Ice Bucket Challenge prompted many users on Facebook and Twitter to share and view user-generated videos. For some, it may have even marked the first time they created and posted a video to Facebook.
The online video advertising market in the U.S. is expected to jump from around $4 billion this year to more than $8 billion in 2016, according to estimates from eMarketer.
This week, Facebook is rolling out two new updates to help it better compete with YouTube in the online video space. First, it is introducing video view counts, similar to what you see on YouTube and other video services.
Beyond that, Facebook is planning to bring even more videos into the News Feed.
"After introducing videos that start playing automatically in News Feed earlier this year, we’ve found that people discover significantly more content with this feature," Simo wrote in a separate blog post. "And when used in combination with our new video views objective, businesses are seeing a significant decrease in cost per view for their Facebook video ads. So in the coming weeks, we’ll extend the availability of videos that play automatically to more content from more brands in the U.S.
If you haven't watched a video on Facebook yet, you probably will soon — whether you like it or not. Check out the one below... Download here
Source:  Mashable