Three months after its global launch, Facebook says it is getting 75 million daily viewers and 400 million a month for its Watch service.
In a blog post, head of video Fidji Simo said viewers to the social network’s video area were watching more than 20 minutes at a time.
Facebook has developed the ‘Watch Party’ to continue television’s role as something that people watch together – in this case, the party is remote – nevertheless, there have been more than 12 million Watch Parties in Groups alone, and Watch Parties garner eight times more comments than regular videos in Groups.
“We want to make the experience of watching video feel immersive no matter where you discovered it,” explained Simo. “As part of this effort, we’ll be testing a few things in the coming months, like creating a darker background whenever you immerse yourself into a video on mobile, unifying these different viewing experiences under one.”
Simo said polling and ‘gamification’ tools had been introduced to help content creators make their output more interactive.
In a back to the future style idea, Facebook is rolling out ad breaks across the world. Already available in five territories, it’s designed to get away from the pre-roll often seen in online video.