
Facebook Watch Isn’t Living Up to Its Name - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/facebook-watch-struggles-to-deliver-hits-or-advertisers
======
skizm
So they got an exclusive deal with a Counter Strike league (ESEA?) and I
decided to watch some matches... Horible experience. Just god awful. Forced
chat showing, emojis everywhere, no theater mode, like 15 FPS and choppy as
hell. Pure crap. I’m real interested in CSGO and flat out didn’t watch any
matches till they made their way to YouTube. Idk what they spent that $1B on.

~~~
bearforcenine
Similar experience with Dota 2 and ESL on Facebook. The experience was
horrible. Viewership was bad. Doesn't seem like anyone was happy about it
[https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1071863217243197440](https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1071863217243197440)

If I recall correctly, people on Twitch streamed games from the Dota
Majors/Minors and got more viewers than the Facebook stream. Then ESL started
DMCA'ing streams
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/7skt8e/did_mlpdota_j...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/7skt8e/did_mlpdota_just_got_shutdown/)
Then Valve got involved and made a statement about the whole kerfuffle
[http://blog.dota2.com/2018/01/dotatv-
streaming/](http://blog.dota2.com/2018/01/dotatv-streaming/)

~~~
kevinwang
It wasn't a great experience, but I personally felt like the outage was a loud
overreaction from the community. I guess that the circumstances were perfect
for outrage: Facebook is not likeable, it's a big change from twitch, and
Facebook paid for exclusivity. I was fine with watching the games on Facebook,
and part of me wishes they succeeded so that we wouldn't have a twitch
monopoly.

~~~
mcny
It was just five or six years ago when my friends and I found Twitch website
unbearable. We'd always watch twitch on vlc using live streamer
[http://docs.livestreamer.io/](http://docs.livestreamer.io/)

Today, we have YouTube Live and to a much smaller extent mixer. More
importantly, I'm not afraid to open Twitch on a desktop web browser. What
changed? The main change is reliable 60fps streaming.

If Facebook can't do 60fps on day one, it might as well not try.

I remember asking Justin tv engineers whether they thought they could break
even. They said it is more than enough to show one thirty second ad every hour
(as far as I remember) to keep the lights on. But then this was before Twitch
partner programs. Also we were streaming from potato quality laptop webcams.
Watching 240p video with 20 second latency was an ordinary miracle.

I imagine the costs are likely much higher today. But I'm curious. Did
Facebook spend a billion dollars on content deals?

------
jandrese
I saw a presentation about Facebook Watch last year where they had their stars
up on stage to talk about their projects. There was a whole lot of talk about
how they were inclusive of all races and genders, no talk at all of the
content or what the shows were even about. I came to the conclusion that the
content was probably not aimed at my demographic. Also, despite being a
somewhat regular Facebook user I can't think of seeing a single one of their
shows advertised on my newsfeed.

~~~
pgrote
>I can't think of seeing a single one of their shows advertised on my
newsfeed.

It is quite remarkable to think about it. I miss the whole encompassing
chronological feed. Understand why they got rid of it.

Yet, when I watched a few episodes of the Shaq Chicken show a notification or
reminder never showed on my timeline when a new episode was posted. lol

------
fipple
So Facebook tries to clone someone and fails. Doesn’t matter one iota. They
could fund 20 of these boondoggles with the results of cloning Snapchat with
runaway success. Betting $1b on a 10% chance of making $11b is a good bet if
you have the bankroll, even if the result is 9 mega failures.

------
i_am_proteus
It really doesn't help that a product that delivers digital video content has
a name that makes it sound like it's something you physically wear on your
wrist to tell you what time it is.

------
erickhill
Huh. Chalk me up to the bar on the graph of having never heard of it. Until
now...

~~~
jonknee
Me either and we're at least in good company:

> Last summer, a year after Watch went live in the U.S., half of consumers
> hadn’t heard of it and three-quarters hadn’t used it, according to
> researcher Diffusion Group

~~~
dplgk
I'm surprised 25 % used it

------
madrox
Having worked in media tech for the last 10 years, I can confidently say we're
past the point where this is a technology problem. Short form, long form,
live...it's all been solved to everyone's satisfaction (though not saying it's
easy). It's all content and analytics now.

I think Facebook was counting on a "if we build it they will come" approach,
but that doesn't work on me-too products. Your users won't invent the next big
hit for you...not when content offerings on the internet are this mature.

------
oblib
I watched a few Golden Boy fights live on FB near the end of last year. And
then went back to Golden Boy's FB page to watch some reruns that I'd missed.

I was thrilled to see those fights. The quality was pretty sucky but still
better than not seeing them, and my connection to the internet is pretty sucky
so I couldn't really complain much about that.

I like the chat going on with the live fights, it was fun to interact with
other fans and Golden Boy did a pretty great job of producing the show.

It's not perfect by a long shot, and a $billion seems like a lot for what
they've done so far, but I'll keep tuning into the fights and anything else
that peaks my interests.

------
fipple
This is just the large scale version of the early Facebook employees who
thought they were geniuses and went on to fail at places like Path and New
Republic.

------
YeahSureWhyNot
Facebook is becoming a total crap. The content is really bad and the audience
too, its mostly millennials who have too much time on their hands and nothing
better to do or professionals but who aren't sophisticated social media users.
and their parents, of course. Facebook is dead for me and for most people I
talk to. Not sure if advertising on Facebook is as effective as it used to be
but I'm pretty sure advertising on Facebook is going to become a lame thing
soon too.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
For years now, Facebook has served one and only purpose for me: to connect
with people I rarely ever speak to (like once in 5 years). If they come in
town, they reach out and see if I'm willing to meet up.

For that 1% of functionality, it's great. I can't imagine using it for any
other reason.

~~~
grawprog
Yup i've basically always looked at it as an address book for a world where
people's phone numbers and emails change regularly. Or, as a few people I
know, just don't have a phone number or don't have an email they check
regularly.

------
wnevets
The Facebook viewing experience is so terrible for ESL's DoTA2 games it became
a bit of a meme over at /r/dota2. Facebook signed a bunch of exclusive
contracts but didn't think to create a good product.

------
klodolph
Facebook strikes me as being terrible at PR and marketing. They had years of
growth with constant free buzz, lots of word-of-mouth, and little need for
traditional advertising or PR work. This might explain why so many people
didn’t know about Watch.

------
jdhn
FTA: "The average Facebook session lasted less than 90 seconds, according to
people familiar with the matter".

How can you make money from people who are going to your site in 90 second
segments? You have an ad in the beginning of your video, that's at least 5
seconds there. Assuming it's not skippable, that leaves 85 seconds at most for
the rest of your video. The only kind of video that can go for 85 seconds or
less are meme videos, and people who watch meme videos sure as hell don't have
the patience to watch unskippable ads before watching memes.

~~~
sharkmerry
I think its not just video for the 90 seconds.

The article frames it as "according to people familiar with the matter—while
you were waiting in a checkout line, trying to avoid eye contact between
subway stops, or sitting on the toilet. "

I'd argue the visits are shortlived more because their visits are driven by
people clicking links, watching/viewing/reading what was sent to them and
closing the window as opposed to someone goign to fb.com and browsing the
feed.

~~~
bduerst
Interesting co-opted behavior from Facebook itself.

People prepare to watch Netflix/Youtube/Prime in settings where they are more
likely able to complete a viewing, whereas Facebook is an boredom filler to
the point that most traffic generated from it has a short attention span. I'd
be interested in seeing the distribution on the view times.

~~~
sharkmerry
Me too, Facebook counts a view at 3seconds. they apparently provide a 95%
metric as well to advertisers. (even that is rigged as someone can skip to the
end and get it counted.
([https://www.facebook.com/business/help/259313030934362](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/259313030934362))
I'd love to see a comparison of those two numbers too

------
beezischillin
I've never been tempted to try any of it. I vastly prefer YouTube or Twitch,
but seeing as how terrible Facebook's own content and user policy is, I'm
unsure as to how anyone even would be interested. The regular video feature of
the Facebook site is borderline unusable, clicking on a video in Safari and
even in Chrome just causes the whole tab to become unresponsive for minutes
sometimes until the full screen player opens, it's impossible to change
settings often and the entire site just starts dying if you scroll around a
timeline for like 10 minutes. It's not a good user experience, tying a video
sharing platform directly into that taints it from the get go. I understand
that they were trying some sort of cross-pollination but at least the YouTube
website is performant. And Facebook's timeline ordering and content curation
is terrible so it's not very inviting. Mainly it seems like they took all the
bad features that drive creators insane on other platforms and bolted it to
their own.

Why?

------
henrikschroder
I'm following Skam Austin on Facebook Watch, which seems to have been stuck in
limbo for half a year. They announced it would get a second season right after
the first season ended in June last year, but it's been radio silence since.
The only way we know that the second season is happening now is because of
casting calls.

This article pretty much confirms what I've been thinking: The Silicon Valley
way of doing things, throwing stuff on the wall, waiting for engineering to
create a feature, drip-launching features, infighting between VPs of this and
that, and fighting for budget meets the TV production side of things, which is
completely different. A TV production runs on a planned schedule, coordinating
a large amount of people together for casting actors, creating sets,
rehearsing scenes, gathering a lot of extras, and shooting.

A TV production is either go or no go, you commit to the schedule or you
don't. It seems like Facebook Watch has to learn some lessons from Hollywood
on this one.

------
pgrote
I would watch more video on facebook if they brought back the facebook live
map feature; it made content easy to find.

It is one of the few times I can recall where a major feature/product simply
disappeared and no one has a reason as to why or even a simple announcement.

~~~
flashman
It's ridiculous. I remember being able to track live events by just looking on
a map near where they were happening: hurricanes, protests and festivals for
example. That feature's just gone, now.

------
shriphani
This is probably better delivered as a separate app - it is probably competing
for real estate with a lot of other fb properties.

------
chillfox
I had no idea that this was even a thing. Did they forget to advertise it?

------
jaequery
took me a while to realize Facebook Watch is actually something like YouTube.
thought it was talking about Facebook releasing something like an Apple Watch!

~~~
quadrangle
shows where my mind is: I was hoping it was an independent journalism outlet
keeping tabs on watching the unethical behaviors of Facebook.

------
liminal18
did not know this feature existed clicked on it and facebook algorithms has a
surpassingly large number of videos tailored to my tastes ended up watching a
British musician explain the 2 necked string instrument she plays that is
between a ukele and lute. sold.

------
burtonator
Hey Facebook... If you're listening. For only $100M I'll launch a video
feature and I will guarantee the same number of users for 1/10th of the cost!

------
cinquemb
I really don't see how consumer hardware like this could ever be a clamoring
success compared to what the smartphone saturated market has been.

~~~
sinstein
The Facebook watch is not a hardware device. It refers to their video feed
service.

~~~
cinquemb
Ahh thanks, I was unsure because the article mentioned it being pitcehd to
advertisers at CES, so I figured it was hardware.

So they want to compete with other services that are burning cash trying to
provide content to ensnare users like NFLX?

------
alkibiades
can anyone explain how sometbing like this can cost 1b?

~~~
cygaril
Buying content.

------
a-dub
they should launch a reality show about themselves!

