'Big year' for Facebook Watch

Dubai - Platform set for changes and beefing-up in coming months

It wasn't all that bad for Facebook in 2018 - especially if you've been 'watching' closely.
The social media giant - beset by a string of scandals this year from a politically-related data breach to a bug compromising users' photos - on Sunday announced that its Facebook Watch platform is being well-received by its users, and is looking forward to beefing up the service in the near future.
Facebook Watch, Mark Zuckerberg & Co's challenge to the likes of Netflix and YouTube, has been launched to every country around the world, and is now also available on both desktop and Lite versions of the service.
And according to numbers provided by the company, its growth is nothing short of exponential, largely in part to the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company's 2.27-billion strong user base.
The figures, shared by Facebook head of video Fidji Simo in a piece provided to Khaleej Times, showed that about 75 million people view videos on Facebook Watch for at least a minute daily; that parameter shoots up to 400 million on a monthly basis. He added that those users in the monthly figure spend more than 20 minutes on the platform on an average basis.
"We're seeing that people are regularly coming back to catch up on the videos they care about and watching for longer periods of time," Simo said. He added that Facebook is also working to unify the video experience across the social media network. While users can watch videos across Facebook's platforms - Watch, News Feed, Search, Pages and more - these can feel different; the company will be conducting tests in the coming months to create a more immersive and streamlined experience.
Facebook Watch is also creating more opportunities for its content partners. In terms of ad revenues, 55 per cent goes to its partners, with the rest going to the company.
"Since the beginning, we've been focused on making Watch a place where all creators and publishers can find an audience and build a community of passionate fans - and importantly, earn money for their work," Simo said. "Building a sustainable ecosystem for video creators is the best way to bring great content to the platform."
- alvin@khaleejtimes.com