Yesterday, Facebook announced a News Feed algorithm change that will show members more videos similar to ones they “expand to full-screen, un-mute or opt to watch in HD”, even if they don’t Like, share or comment. Those same indicators will tell Facebook that a video is enjoyable so the Feed shows it to more people.
Now that is Big Data on viewership, leveraging insights from viewer behavior patterns, and it could definitely give Facebook an edge on YouTube, the leading internet video giant.
Unlike Facebook, YouTube is not a feed. Many of Facebook’s 1 billion+ users come daily, sometimes even hourly, to view the latest from their friends. As a matter of fact, every clip you see is essentially a recommendation from someone you are connected to and Like, and since the feed is so popular, it knows you will at some point see these videos. All it has to do is figure out what you want to see! The latter, in turn, is getting a lot easier with big data-driven personalization engines.
Facebook can process highly specific data on viewer behavior to learn what each individual member wants to see. How many seconds did people watch the video for? Was it visually stimulating? Multiply that by 4 billion videos per day in an IoT world where Facebook knows that a video popular with some people will probably be interesting to people similar to them based on all the biographical and behavior data it has.
So, now all of a sudden, it becomes quite clear why and how data-driven personalization could lead to a Feed full of the exact videos you may want to see.
These and other similar enhancements will be made over a period of time, and it sure remains to be seen if Facebook is trying to usher us into an era of diminished Tube popularity, or simply making it fun for its members.
