Facebook tracks your video watching preferences

You don’t just have to like certain videos for Facebook to bring similar clips to your attention. The social network is now tracking your preferences or behavior when it comes to videos. It now also takes into account if you’ve switched the video to full-screen, increased volume, and even switched to HD (when it’s available).

According to a Facebook release, "We are now taking into account more interactions with videos that we have learned indicate whether someone found that video interesting, such as choosing to turn on sound, making the video full screen, and enabling high definition. So if you turn the volume up or make the video full screen, we have updated News Feed to infer you liked the video and will show you similar videos higher up in your News Feed. We have found that this helps us show people more videos that they are interested in.”

Source: Facebook | Via: Lifehacker Australia

Facebook adds view count for videos

Facebook videos are soon going to look like YouTube videos. The social network is adding view count to videos posted on their site. So, if you want to know if your video has gone viral, you’ll soon be able to see just that. The view count will be available for public videos posted by individual users and those posted by company pages. It is rolling out at the moment and we’re not sure how long it’ll take for Facebook to bring it to all its users.

Source: Facebook Newsroom | Via: CNET

Facebook introduces auto-play for videos on mobile

Facebook has rolled out an auto-play feature for native Facebook and Instagram videos on iOS and Android versions of its app. Tech Crunch writer Josh Constine likens it to the moving photos in Harry Potter films. If you’re worried about automatic video playing eating up your data, you can activate the setting on your Facebook app that allows you to auto-play videos only on Wi-Fi. You don’t have to worry about sound blaring out as you scroll through your feed, the videos will initially play without sound unless you tap on it to view the videos with sound and on full screen.

Facebook also plans to monetize this feature and will eventually allow the presence of video ads on your News Feed. Let’s just hope it won’t be as obtrusive and annoying as it can get.