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Facebook Will Introduce Ads As Videos Start Playing (recode.net) 72

Facebook is going to start running pre-roll ads on its "Watch" videos next year. While you won't see your News Feed full of video ads, you will start to see pre-rolls, which will run for up to six seconds, on videos in Facebook's "Watch" hub. Recode reports: Facebook launched its Watch hub earlier this year, using "mid-roll" ads (another ad format Facebook tried to avoid for a long time). The fact that they have added pre-rolls -- the format used around the web and the one advertisers are most comfortable with -- should be read as an admission that the mid-roll ads aren't generating significant revenue for Facebook or the publishers putting video into Watch. Speaking of those mid-roll ads: Facebook now says they won't appear until later in videos and they'll only run on longer videos. It says the ads (it calls them "ad breaks") can't run until a minute into a video, and they can only run if the video is at least three minutes long. At first, the ads could run after 20 seconds and on videos as short as 90 seconds.
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Facebook Will Introduce Ads As Videos Start Playing

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  • Face what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moof123 ( 1292134 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @08:31PM (#55742953)

    One more reason to continue to avoid Zucker-hell

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jessepdx ( 1207628 )

      I deleted FB a while ago, I found it's easier to remain friends with friends when i don't read their FB posts.

      • by gnick ( 1211984 )

        ...I found it's easier to remain friends with friends when i don't read their FB posts.

        I find that I disagree with my friends in areas that might not have come up in normal conversation, but typically my friends are reasonable people and we can discuss our differences of opinion. My father and I disagree strongly on several topics, but we're still friends. There are exceptions, e.g. the DJT fanatics and the anti-vaccine cultists (in my circles of friends, that's the same two people). It is possible to have intelligent conversations on FB with differing, valid points of view. Your experience

      • by torkus ( 1133985 )

        but but but...then who will know when autie mae bakes a cake for your birthday and the cat knocks it off the table before the icing is put on and everyone is sooooo relieved but also sad there was no cake?

        Also, how will SJWs be able to educate you on how everyone is doing everything wrong, always?

    • by slazzy ( 864185 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @09:24PM (#55743211) Homepage Journal
      He's welcome in my hosts file, listed as 127.0.0.1
  • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @08:47PM (#55743031)

    The majority of the internet economy is driven by ads. I love watching it burn to the ground.

    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      There is a reason why google is so big, which is well doing the exact opposite of what facebook is doing here.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday December 15, 2017 @12:09AM (#55743665) Homepage

        No Google were cheeky fuckers, really cunning. They did not target their ads at you, they targeted them at the advertisers, convincing them to buy ad space.

        Want to know why those ads don't sell because youtube et al is much more like magazines rather than like TV. So imagine you are reading a magazine and flip to the next article, what they do is not offer an ad, they shove it in you face and demand, actually fucking demand you keep it there, "fuck you animal look at my ad, how dare you fucking look away scum". Now they expect that approach to sell you something, well, it doesn't is just pisses people off and they hate the product, not one forced ad has ever sold me anything what so ever, not a single one because fuck em. In a magazine the ad is offered for a split second you read or ignore it, on the internet oh fucking no, WATCH THE AD ANIMAL OR ELSE, seriously demand you watch the ad, insist you watch the ad, force you to watch the ad and then scream at you, and in the most idiotic fashion expect that ad to sell you anything what so ever. Of course that ad targeted at advertisers, feeding their delusions, expecting positive results from forcing ads on people, yep buys right into their ego and they spend big and blame lack of sales on other things, rather than shitty advertising practices.

        Ads, you have to let people choose, else you sell nothing. M$ was the worst at this showing full page ads, blocking content until the ad cycle ran down it's timer or as more often was the case, people just stopped going to MSM because dick heads ran the company, choked the chicken with their ad greed. Where is MSM now, Facebook is on the way out, people are starting to look for excuses to drop it.

        • by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Friday December 15, 2017 @04:31AM (#55744191)

          I tolerate and ignore the 5 second adds.

          The ones that demand I watch them before I can watch the video, I just go to a different video. Or mute the sound and switch to a different window. I *hate* them. I will not purchase anything due to those ads from people who advertise that way .

          • by gnick ( 1211984 )

            I will not purchase anything due to those ads from people who advertise that way .

            You'll try. We'll all try. The advertisers are hoping that their strategy will trump our reluctance. They just want us to recognize their brand and not remember why.

          • by torkus ( 1133985 )

            Same.

            Besides addblock and similar, I've got my own mental filter. I just don't see adds for the most part. FB is rather insidious with them and how they insert them but it's also a big part of the reason I don't use FB much anymore.

      • But at least Google is providing useful services and doing research that goes beyond targeted ads. What is FB providing except a platform for fake news and narcissistic attention-seekers?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      why do people always act like Facebook, Twitter & YouTube are government services and should bend to their whims? If you don't like it, don't use it.

  • 100000000001 Not to use, browse, or be caught DEAD on Flakebook...
  • Well, Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @08:51PM (#55743071) Journal

    It says the ads (it calls them "ad breaks") can't run until a minute into a video, and they can only run if the video is at least three minutes long. At first, the ads could run after 20 seconds and on videos as short as 90 seconds.

    Nothing else for me, Santa... that's my whole Christmas list.

  • by zlives ( 2009072 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @08:56PM (#55743097)

    sign me up to this facepalm.

  • by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @08:57PM (#55743103)

    I can't imagine why this is good for anything, or anyone, or who would want this. Didn't they just say they were going to try to not ruin the world any more than they have already contributed to doing so, with their "schtik" the other day?

    Who wants ad's in their forums anyhow? They should talk to SourceForge.

    --
    And then there was one...

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Skilled developers will work around this ad push into a users own computer.

      Browsers will show no ads.
      Social media will get reports users are watching every ad as they use social media.
      100% perfect playback of every ad by that user.

      They pretend they show ads to us and we pretend we watch ads.
      • > Skilled developers will work around this ad push into a users own computer.

        You mean only until each and every webpage is encrypted and digitally signed and won't display if any content is altered by an end user via a blob of binary code in every web browser.

        The Internet is becoming just like Cable TV or (shudder) late 90s AOL.

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Some sort of white space layer to cover the video at the OS level?
          Have the OS do something to block the sound from the browser. No real world results from the browser playing the video social media forced onto the user thanks to the OS?
          Encryption can secure the way the page displays in the browser, the OS can keep the user safe from the results of the ad been forced into the browser.
        • Browser proxy? The first browser fake-runs the whole thing, the second browser scrapes the first and only plays the part the user really wants to see?

  • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @09:14PM (#55743169) Journal
    Social media gets nothing.
    The more you tighten your ads, the more users will slip through your networks.
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @09:19PM (#55743185)

    This one is for free: Don't do it.

    There is no worse place for your ad than in front of some video someone wants to watch. Your ad could be the most topical ad ever, targeted perfectly for me and even about something I have been looking for for my whole life. And still my reaction to it would be negative. Why? Because it keeps me from getting what I want.

    Not just like the ads interrupting shows that you watch. They may be annoying, but at least you already got a bit of what you wanted. That's more like someone calling during dinner. Annoying, but you're still chewing, you're still tasting your food, you're still more or less satisfied while you get annoyed. No. This is interrupting and annoying you BEFORE you get what you want. That's more like someone who stops you right after you're done cooking, preparing to sit down to enjoy your meal, looking forward to it and already salivating in anticipation.

    This is the WORST kind of experience you could give someone. Your ad target already knows what he wants, thinks he is about to get it and this is exactly the moment you interrupt him.

    This person will do anything to get rid of your ad. And he will not care AT ALL what your ad is about. He will not watch it. He will use every second of the time he has to watch it to look for ways to end it so he finally gets what he actually wanted.

    • Ads on TVs are as irritating and distracting too. But before DVRs and TiVO there was no way to skip them. And people put up with it. People will tolerate a lot of shit if there is no other way to get the content they want to watch at the price they are willing to pay

      Facebook probably spent tons of money doing focus group research to find how much shit they can heap up on their user ^H^H^H^H product.

      Remember the old joke,

      Thesis Guide: "What does the research sponsor think the incident rate would be?"

      Ph

    • by Chozabu ( 974192 )
      Wish this was true. Suspect enough people click on pre-video ads it (in the short term at least) seems worth it. I imagine youtube would have stopped this annoying practice otherwise.
      • YouTube has stopped this annoying practice. At least on my computer.

        This is basically the main problem here. People go out of their way to get rid of those ads. We have seen it with conventional online advertising that has become so invasive and annoying that even people who wouldn't have bothered otherwise have now installed adblockers. There are people who put up with dozens of error messages and popups when they turn on their computer, who put up with browser windows the size of a stamp because search ba

      • by dfm3 ( 830843 )
        I suspect that virtually all of the clicks on video ads are of the "trying to figure out where to click to make this crap go away" variety rather than "hmm, interesting ad, I'll forego the video I was about to watch so I can find out more about the product."
    • by trawg ( 308495 )

      The reasons you cite are why ad dollars for video pre-rolls are so great. If you have a bunch of popular video content, you will make more money because companies pay way way more to get in front of people like that.

      But I think most people don't go very far to get rid of ads. My partner lives on Facebook and watches a lot of dumb videos (the source of several recent arguments and my inspiration for drastically scaling back my Facebook use); I am confident she would not bat an eye at a 2-5 second pre-roll ad

      • In my experience, your partner is a minority.

        I work in security and am the go-to guy for all computer related ailments a friend might have. I have seen my fair share of computers that were SO overbloated with crapware, adware and malware that they barely still started. And usually, I get called at the point when the final straw breaks the camel's back, but no second sooner. I have removed more ad-, helper-, and search-bars than many people could name. Usually from the same machine.

        Yet these people, whose p

      • The way it is done now almost works... you watch a bit of the viral video and then a little ad interruption occurs. If the video starts as an ad, I would guess most people will just keep on scrolling.
  • Adblock plus/ublock usage spikes in 8000%

  • slashdot users use facebook?
  • While you won't see your News Feed full of video ads

    As of the last few days, I'm getting this now. Any posted video in the feed plays for 2-3 seconds as you scroll to it and then goes straight to an ad. It keeps me from watching videos on Facebook, which is fine by me. Sometimes you just need an interruption to remind you that you weren't wanting to watch in the first place.

    They mention this thing called a "Watch" hub, and I've never seen this.

  • yes google is doing just the opposite facebook http://accedebigdataacademy.co... [accedebigdataacademy.com]
  • Time to short Facebook stock.

  • You have a hugely profitable business.

    What do you do?

    Screw over your customers for pennies.

  • I'm not on facebook. I'm not an attention whore/drama queen.
  • I've been blocking ads for 20 years now, ever since I noticed that the banner ad would load first before the rest of the page had even started loading on a 28.8k dialup connection. It's multi-level for me now -

    • Hosts file - used this initially, now it's just AdAway on my rooted Android
    • AdMuncher [admuncher.com], a commercial adblocker for Windows that blocks ads at the socket level, so even ads inside programs get filtered
    • After Firefox appeared, started using Adblock Plus, and now Ublock Origin. On Android I still use ABP.
    • B
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato

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