FACEBOOK’s NEWS FEED could get a whole lot busier as the company introduces auto-play videos, paving the way for video advertising further down the line.
Similar to how videos play on Instagram, once you scroll down and see a video in your news feed, it will begin playing automatically. The company has been testing the feature over the past few weeks and is now bringing it to all users.
Videos will be silent at first, and users can turn on sound by tapping on the video. Only videos uploaded from Facebook and Instagram will play automatically, while YouTube videos will still need to be selected to play.
Currently, only videos from personal accounts and from musicians and bands will begin playing automatically. Facebook will extend the feature to other pages and services over time.
For those conscious about using up data when playing videos, you can set it so that they only play when you’re connected to WiFi.
iOS users have to go into the phone’s settings and scroll down to Facebook’s section to change it, while Android users must go into app settings on Facebook.
Facebook has been planning on introducing video ads for a number of months. They were originally due to arrive during the summer, but the company was aware that they could upset users and so delayed its release. It’s expected that these ads would make their way to both mobile and desktop sometime next year.
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