Mobile digital video is big business in 2016 thanks to a combination of factors, including cellular carriers buying video producers, through to businesses like Netflix, carriers offering unlimited streaming and social networks using video advertising. We’ve seen how Facebook has pushed into digital video advertising in a big way and now Pinterest is following, with the launch of a native autoplaying video service released earlier in the week. This represents a significant upgrade to the Pinterest platform as to date, Pinterest is akin to an electronic scrap booking application – albeit one that enjoyed significant growth. In the last year, the service has grown by a considerable 50%. Pinterest has continued to evolve the platform over this time; currently, the service allows customers to find images in its massive picture library, or from elsewhere on the web, and “pin” them to pre-designed boards. These images may be saved or shared. Uses for Pinterest include collating ideas for weddings, home improvements, technology purchases and cheesecakes to try, but perhaps in due course it could be used for collections of videos to watch.
From this week, some customers will be able to upload their own videos into the service rather than linking to another service, such as YouTube. As views scroll past the post, the video will autoplay on the device in question. The new embedded video player follows Pinterest’s launch of a video advertising service and follows the platform’s gradual increase of advertising and other means of generating revenue. Another development we’ve witnessed is the ability to buy items featured in a pin, around a year ago and a means of generating a transaction charge every time customers buy something.
However, at the present time these new pinned videos will probably not be very commonly featured in the main Pinterest feed. Instead, Pinterest is incorporating autoplaying videos into the search feed via a new tab. Customers will be suggested videos based on popular items based on their search criteria, although should somebody pin an autoplay video into a board, people following this will see it in their normal board feed display. As Pinterest is essentially playing catch-up with the rest of the social media application and service scene when it comes to embedded videos, one would hope that they have had plenty of time to observe how the industry uses autoplay videos including video adverts – and that the changes will be well implemented on the platform.