What the Q4 2016 Earnings Report Tells us About the Near-Future of Facebook

More than 1,9 billion people (!) use Facebook every month according to the Q4 / 2016 earnings report. The vast majority of these users accessed Facebook from mobile devices. A shattering 84% of the company’s total ad revenue comes from mobile. Guess what's on top of Mark Zuckerbergs mind? Facebook is at the epicenter of everyone's attention.

360-degree videos, virtual reality and live

It’s impossible to miss that Facebook is really into live video. New Year’s Eve was one of their biggest live moments ever, demonstrating the power live video has when it comes to bringing people together. Many brands have jumped onboard the bandwagon and started testing what works and what doesn’t, while many more have barely started their journey. With the constant experimentation, best practices emerge and are shared.

Facebook will continue to experiment with 360° videos and virtual reality. The company has a 10-year plan for VR, where they envision themselves being a hardware as well as a content provider. Short-term, the company is looking at investing in VR content – from new games to educational experiences. However, within the coming years, working with 360° videos seems to the most viable approach. If you're interested in knowing a bit more about VR and video, head over to Gaddr where I've written an article on the subject.

Bringing over content creators

People love watching and sharing videos. In Fact, Cisco believes that 82% of the IP traffic on the Internet will be video by 2020. Facebook has realized where everyone is heading and that's why Mark is calling video a "mega trend".

While the founders of YouTube never imagined that their video-sharing website would become the huge success it is today, the large amount of watched and uploaded videos is mind-boggling. And the heart of its success are the content creators. These are the people that record, edit and upload videos. They are the ones that create communities by engaging with their fans. Many of them have become so successful that they can pursue their creative passion full-time. Others are struggling, but having fun.

If Facebook is going to compete against YouTube in terms of original content, they need to come up with a revenue model to attract the creatives. Otherwise, there are no financial incentives for them to distribute content on Facebook, even though natively uploading one ensures high reach as Facebook's algorithms kick in.

The UX/UI of video consumption and sharing

We hate having a bad experience when watching and sharing video. Building a great user experience and user interface accommodating friction-less consumption and sharing is obviously a top priority for the talented people over at Facebook. With the vast majority of Facebook’s DAU/MAU being on mobile devices, how do you make sure that the experience is smooth and problem free? To make it easier for people to find and watch videos, the company has added a tab at the bottom of the Facebook app with top videos and recommendations. How you get into this spot is shrouded in mystery until someone manages to reverse-engineer the algorithms or gets lucky. This tab is currently only available in the U.S., but Facebook is planning at rolling it out to more countries soon. In the coming years, we’ll see multiple tweaks to the experience and user interface.