
Facebook set to finally launch auto-play video ads in news feeds - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/12/report-facebook-set-to-finally-launch-auto-play-video-ads-in-news-feeds/
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hapless
It's about time.

Facebook's ad inventory has historically been worthless. It doesn't matter how
precisely you target the ads if you don't have the attention of the audience.
Facebook had none of the "intent-harvesting" opportunities of search ads: they
were just sticking text in the middle of the content you actually wanted to
read.

Facebook ad inventory needed to be more like TV. Like Facebook, television
advertising has no "intent-harvesting," but it has pretty good targeting. The
nature of TV ads gives them a chance to engage the viewer.

Using full-motion video ads, with or without audio, gives advertisers a
fighting chance for your attention. The ability to interrupt might be enough
to make Facebook's valuation work.

~~~
basicallydan
I admire your decision to separate yourself from the user experience angle of
this and focus on it from a business perspective.

Nevertheless, I hope that this little decision will be enough to put a lot of
people off of Facebook because I'd rather see something like this fail than
for an application I used to use as an example of pretty good UX and model of
simplicity succeed with ad advertising technique normally lumped together with
pop-up ads and fake buttons on download sites.

In short, to use a simple, easy to understand phrase: auto-play video ads are
lame.

That said, I'm willing to be proven wrong. Maybe they'll come up with some way
to make it unintrusive, but that isn't really the point, is it?

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Nursie
$2 million per day to really annoy a whole load of people...

Advertisers get ever more desperate to reach audiences but we've seen before
that this arms race ends with ads so intrusive that people start to block them
routinely. It might drive people away from FB, or it might make ad blocking
more mainstream. It'll be interesting to watch.

~~~
tokenizer
OR, people won't care, and you and I are the small minority who bother to
block them or boycott said websites,

~~~
Nursie
I don't boycott facebook, and I don't think other people will either. But it
will drive more to adblocking, I'm sure of it. Not everyone, sure, but more.

~~~
tokenizer
I do, I was just saying what you're saying. Changes like this are annoying,
and a few people will reject the change.

That said, As long as theres no sound and the ad is to the side of the actual
content/app, its not that big of a deal. I use adblocker for all sites except
grooveshark, which uses a video ad with no audio. Dont mind it that much...

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mschuster91
Adblock Plus takes care of the ads already, and I wouldn't be surprised if it
also spares me the video ads.

~~~
droopyEyelids
Looks like you missed the part about everyone moving to 'mobile'

~~~
mschuster91
So what? There are numerous adblockers available for Android and jailbroken
Crapple phones - and I'm sure that if the ads are to be loaded over cellular
data, users will revolt.

Most people these days live on metered connections, and I surely would rather
kill the FB app than have it drain my data coverage.

~~~
anonymouscowar1
Can you suggest a good one for Android? I am missing ABP sorely.

~~~
renata
AdAway is what I use.

[https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.adaway](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.adaway)

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PhasmaFelis
...Facebook has ads?

Thank God for you, AdBlock.

~~~
viraptor
If you need a rush of adrenaline one day, try turning it off and visiting some
well-known news sites... I was pretty sure the machine I saw it on (parents'
computer) was infected. Then realised my parents really need adblock.

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pavanred
The only place I actually find myself watching a video ad is in Hulu, where
Hulu provides me an option of watching a video ad now in return of
uninterrupted streaming of the content I wanted to watch, which I guess seems
fair to me.

I guess that would work better, if you are provided the option of auto-playing
video ads in your news feed, or watch one or two video ads for uninterrupted
access to the news feed, say for every half hour of usage.

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rcfox
The article mentions that the ads will only load over WiFi. How do you do
that? Is it functionality specific to mobile apps?

~~~
josefresco
The source of our WiFi is increasingly being capped as well so I'm not so sure
this is even an acceptable approach. Just because I have WiFi single doesn't
meet I have an unlimited amount of bandwidth to load your crappy video.

Detecting WiFi is a clever hack that works for right now, but for those using
cell wifi routers, cell hot spots or with crappy ISPs that have a low cap it
won't matter.

~~~
bentcorner
I know in Android you can mark a wifi AP as a hotspot to make apps throttle. I
don't know about iOS or WP though.

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benmorris
I can't blame them for doing it but I'm sure it will lead to me using facebook
less. I probably won't close my account but just use the site less. My
newsfeed is increasingly annoying as it is.

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k-mcgrady
I've got the graph search but still (even after signing up to the 'waiting
list' on day one) haven't got the 'new' design. I wonder if this means I won't
get the video ads...

~~~
beaumartinez
Is your language "English (US)"? I think that was necessary for Graph Search.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I changed it to US which got me graph search. Still no new design though.

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johnclass
Has there been any study on the effectives of video ads. Just wonder how many
people close tabs because of video ads; At least I do.

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RexRollman
Auto plating videos and animated GIFs are the bane of my Internet browsing.
Luckily, both are easy to stop with Firefox.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
Back when animated ads were the thing - maybe they still are, I don't know - I
quickly realized it was difficult for me to read an article with a monkey
bouncing back and forth right next to it or there was an epilepsy-inducing
banner telling me I was the 1000000000000000th visitor. It's not even a matter
of being annoying, but of literally degrading the value of the content of the
site. Back when I couldn't block the ad outright, I would simply resize the
window and scroll it off-screen.

I used to use hostfile-based ad blocking and then started using AdBlock when
it came along. The thing is, I'm not opposed to ads on principle or anything.
I'm just opposed to ads that wreck the product being provided in exchange for
the ad. It's like "Sure, I'll let you use my site, but I get to punch you in
the head in exchange."

There are plenty of sites I've disabled AdBlock on, although I figure the odds
of an ad on any random site being relevant or interesting to me is about 10000
to 1. I spent a while with AdBlock off on Facebook and thought the ads being
shown me were really pathetic given how much Facebook should know about me and
be able to target me.

But in general, I'm only opposed to ads when they ruin whatever they are being
used to monetize. It's one reason I stopped watching broadcast TV now that ads
consume 1/3 of the actual viewing time. Autoplaying videos definitely fall in
that category, and I normally keep my computer muted anyway because the last
thing I want is some stupid website blaring noise at me. I only unmute the
computer if I'm specifically going to watch a video or listen to something.
And let's face it, these ads will all be for banks or cars or some stupid
political candidate using the movie-trailer-voice guy to tell me that so-and-
so eats puppies and kittens, etc., etc. It's all just useless noise.

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chris_wot
I think that when they do this, I will delete my Facebook account. Or at the
very least, not log into it.

~~~
throwwit
If anything things like this are a reason...
[http://www.fastcompany.com/3023263/work-smart/the-
surprising...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3023263/work-smart/the-surprising-
ways-social-media-posts-bias-hiring-managers)

Facebook has gotta start looking out for it's user's interests.

~~~
chris_wot
The only reason people use Facebook is because other people use Facebook. It's
not even because of the technology. This could be done by someone else (it
would take time to get to the same scale). If more people remove themselves
from it, then it will eventually fail.

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salient
With any luck, this will be the last major step that will cause Facebook's
fading into irrelevance.

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alisnic
"finally"?

~~~
JonnieCache
They were supposed to launch in october or something, and it got pushed back.

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pcharles
I HATE this.

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rfnslyr
For all those thinking that you can't delete your facebook because you will
lose connections: Delete it and watch how much you don't care.

Get their emails/phone numbers, call them once in awhile, grab a coffee.

~~~
k-mcgrady
A simpler idea is to stop using your account but leave it active. Make it a
glorified address book. Every now and then you can check in and accept friend
requests if necessary. I know a few people who use it like this (not because
they dislike Facebook but just because they spend very little time at a
computer). It seems to work for them. They get the benefits without the
constant ads and stream of info they don't care about. Of course if privacy is
your concern this isn't a good suggestion but otherwise it's a happy medium.

~~~
nilkn
Oddly enough, Facebook is finally starting to live up to its under-promising
name: a digital yearbook that I occasionally thumb through when I'm curious
about an old friend but otherwise let sit collecting dust.

Really exciting and controversial stuff doesn't happen much on Facebook
anymore, at least not on my news feed. People are too concerned about
maintaing their constructed image. My friends with babies use it as a family
album. My friends trying to go into acting or modeling practically use it as
an online professional portfolio. A lot of my coworkers are connected on
Facebook, which naturally limits the extent of their expression; they might
appear to be great friends, and to a large extent they are, but if one of them
is mad about work they for sure can't post it to Facebook.

~~~
rfnslyr
Thing with me is it's either I don't have it and never go on, or I have it and
I'm brainlessly browsing random shit for hours on end simply because I can.

I guess that's more of a personal thing as I have pretty bad self restraint
issues haha.

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stefan_kendall
Auto-playing user videos are almost certainly worse than whatever targeted ads
I'm going to see.

