Facebook, like many other social networks, have been faced with a problem. That is, trying to get their users to spend more time on their platform. Twitter has been creating all sorts of great features that will keep users on Twitter instead of going to news sites for their news and such. Facebook on the other hand, has been getting into video as of late. Particularly live video. Why is video so important to Facebook all of a sudden? There are a few reasons, but the big one is cash. You see, video ads pay at higher rates than standard ads do. Which mean more money for Facebook.
On top of that, Facebook wants to be the leader in everything. And with video they are looking to compete with YouTube, and have even talked about sharing their ad revenues with creators for video. Similar to what YouTube does. Facebook already has some pretty big numbers for those that watch video – although YouTube is still much, much higher. And if this report out of The Wall Street Journal is anything to go by, we may see an even bigger push for Facebook and video.
According to this report, Facebook is developing a standalone camera app, that is going to encourage users to take more pictures and video as well as share more of them on their social network. According to those in the know, the app reportedly acts similar to Snapchat. Where you open the app and it immediately goes to the camera. Allowing you to take photos and video. These people did also say that this is in the very early stages and may never actually happen. We’ve seen this before with a number of products, not always apps.
The problem that Facebook has right now is that users are coming to the site, checking their newsfeed and that’s about it. Many users aren’t coming and sharing videos or photos, which stagnates the engagement that other users will make on the site. That’s something that Facebook wants to change, and they believe this app could help them out with that issue. Now remember that this is just a report, and that nothing is set in stone. So take this all with a grain of salt for now.