Facebook recently released a preview of its new program that aims to overthrow YouTube from the throne of the largest source of revenue for online videos. views in a short time.
The online video market is quite diverse and multiple, but everyone knows that there are only a few major competitors, including, obviously, YouTube and Facebook, but we also have Vimeo and other platforms that offer so-called On Demand Videos (VOD). All this diversity is a good opportunity for a wide range of video creators and filmmakers, who now find it easier to offer their creations to as many audiences as possible. All this is great for those who want to promote, but and for those who want to enjoy your videos, how do you do it?
- We still don’t have an exact and guaranteed answer to being able to generate income from your online videos.
- But the most popular option so far is to do what YouTube does: sell ad space.
- Many people at these large companies are trying to find the best way to place these ads without impairing the user experience.
- It is not an easy task and we will certainly see many changes in this market.
In the midst of this huge global market where there can be billions of people watching online videos per hour, there is still no foolproof business plan for companies hosting videos, unless it’s clear and outdated good publicity and propaganda. Even YouTube, the world’s leading online video distribution and accommodation site, still faces many challenges before coming out of the red at the end of the year.
This uncertainty, about the future of online video and its financial performance?It’s just that Facebook is only having a first test with a few online content creators who already have a large number of loyal followers, such as Funny or Die, NBA, FOX Sports and Hearst. This test is expected to last until the end of the year and, if successful, the program will be open to the general public probably early next year. If that happens, it will be another opportunity for filmmakers and video filmmakers around the world to showcase their creations and make money. For now, the split between Facebook and content creators is 55% for the producer and the rest for the company. As always, this number may change depending on the tests performed.
As stated, Facebook’s plan is to do the same as YouTube, which is to share the revenue from targeted ads that appear in videos with video creators. However, Facebook’s initial idea wasn’t just to emulate how YouTube makes money from online videos. Facebook is trying to innovate to outwit this Internet giant and, for that, it will test the ad placement only between viewing one video and another. As said, the idea right now is to place ads while Facebook makes video suggestions that can appeal to users. This can significantly limit ad duration compared to YouTube ads, but it can still do something positive for creators. However, before we make any inference, we have to wait and see how things will turn out. There’s still a long way to go in this online video war.