The social network will start playing videos automatically in the news feed of the mobile app, in an attempt to save you a few taps of the screen.
As we’re scrolling down our news feed, which is already infested with ads, videos will auto-start, in a manner that doesn’t bring us at our wit’s end. If you’ve browsed the Web in the past two decades, you might have stumbled upon pages with auto-playing videos that make people lose their mind, since they’re not muted. Facebook’s approach seems to be different, as the videos will play without sound for a few seconds. If you tap the video while it is displayed on the screen, sound will be added and you are free to watch it till the end. You also have the option to scroll further, thus letting the app know that you are not interested in the video.
Rejoice, people, lolcat videos will start playing automatically in your news feed, along with the latest videos of your favorite band! Like Facebook even cares about that. This looks like the first step of integrating video ads into your feed. Obviously, the ones who have already realized this are anything but happy about it. Some even claim that it’s one more reason to switch to G+, but Google’s social network might not be spared for long. After all, everyone knows how annoying YouTube has become recently, because of the auto-playing ads that precede many clips, from movie trailers to music videos.
At the moment, Facebook plans to show you auto-play videos that come from your friends and from the bands and musicians that you are following. This measure is probably taken in order not to shock you.
Maybe this social network and the companies that support auto-playing ads do not understand how annoying these things can be. After getting an unsolicited video ad in my browser or mobile app, the manufacturer of the advertised product can safely delete me from the list of potential customers, as I’ll suddenly start focusing on its competitors, unless they have the same strategy. Adblockers will become much more appreciated in the near future, considering the way these companies are treating us. They should learn once and for all that the pop-up technique does not work, regardless if the ads are presented as images or videos.
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