Facebook news feeds are continually changing, and the latest upgrade sees 360-degree videos become the new talking point.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the new feature back in March, so the news isn’t exactly a surprise, but the change is the next step in transforming the way people interact with their Facebook profiles.
Video feeds
Facebook Video engineering director Maher Saba explained the thinking behind the introduction of the new feature.
“Our goal at Facebook is to connect you with the people and things that matter, every single day. Over time, we’ve seen that people enjoy more immersive content in their News Feeds. This is one reason video has been so successful on Facebook, and we’re excited to take it a step further with 360 video.
“To create 360 videos, a special set of cameras is used to record all 360 degrees of a scene simultaneously. This means that when the video is playing on Facebook, you can choose what angle you want to see it from. On the web you can do this by dragging around the video with your cursor, and on mobile devices you do it by dragging with your finger – or even just by turning your device. You’ll be able to hold up your phone and the 360 video will follow you as you turn, looking around, to experience things from all over the world like never before.”
360 uptake
Initially, only a few pages seem to have taken advantage of the new feature, with Star Wars, Discovery, NBC’s Saturday Night Live, VICE and GoPro leading the way. However, unlike some previous new Facebook features, this one isn’t limited to verified accounts or business pages as anyone can upload a 360-degree video.
“There’s also a whole world of video creators and storytellers who are at the cutting edge of exploring this medium, and over the coming days they too will be able to upload their 360 videos to Facebook. We’re excited to see more innovative and compelling 360 videos being shared from these publishers,” Saba enthused.
As yet, there is only support of the feature for web and Android, with the social media giant saying iOS users may have to wait months to join in the fun.
