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Facebook offers up its autoplay video ads to other apps
If you're already annoyed with the autoplay video ads in your Facebook timeline, you might want to brace yourself. The social network is opening up that advertising tech to outside apps, or more specifically, to publishers who leverage Menlo Park's Audience Network for their advertisements. In addition to those clips that play automatically, developers can leverage "dynamic product ads" that serve up content based on your browsing habits, carousel ads with up to five images and the more common (and less annoying) click-to-play videos. Of course, ads, especially on mobile, have been a big money maker for Facebook, and now it's further expanding that reach.
Facebook figures if you listened to a video, you must like it
Facebook continues to refine what you see in your news feed. Today, the social network that your mom uses announced that it will track more information about your video watching habits to include whether or not you perform any actions like turn up the volume or make a video full screen. Facebook will use that information to place what it believes are more relevant auto-playing videos into your feed. Facebook recently announced that it would track how long users look at posts in addition to when someone clicks the Like or Share button to aggregate posts. Today's news is just an extension of that. The company says it will roll out this new way to weight posts in user feeds over the coming weeks and that Pages shouldn't expect "significant changes in distribution as a result of this update."
Twitter automatically plays videos on iOS and the web
Facebook isn't the only big social network automatically playing most videos these days -- Twitter is hopping on that bandwagon, too. Visit your feed on iOS or the web and any GIFs, Vines and native Twitter video will start playing as soon as you look at them. On iOS, clips will go full-screen if you switch to landscape mode. The move is meant to both save you a clip and, of course, keep you using Twitter's services as much as possible.
Oh great, Twitter's testing autoplay videos in your feed
Twitter has taken yet another page from Facebook's notebook. Starting today, the social media company will begin testing autoplay video ads, which sounds a lot like the feature Facebook introduced on its site in 2013. It's rolling out in limited tests for iPhone and iPad users in the US -- some will see full-length videos play in their newsfeeds, while others will get a six-second preview loop. In either case, the video won't play with sound until the user clicks on it to view full screen.
Facebook confirms autoplay video ads are coming to your News Feed
They've been a long time coming, but Facebook's new video ads are finally here. Confirming an earlier report from the Wall Street Journal that said they'd launch this week, the company said it will test promoted videos on a limited number of users' News Feeds, kicking off with mini trailers for the new film Divergent. Leaning on a model utilized by Instagram, Facebook's video ads will automatically play when they appear onscreen -- although sound will be muted on both the desktop and mobile, unless you deliberately click on the video. Facebook has also worked around the question of load times and mobile data caps, choosing to cache the videos on your device ahead of time while you're connected via WiFi, even if they don't play until later. While you won't be able prevent the new ad units from popping up, they can be avoided with some quick scrolling, just like you did with Facebook's other sponsored content.
WSJ: Facebook's autoplaying video ads launch this week
After months of rumors, the Wall Street Journal claims Facebook will finally include video ads in user's feeds on the web and mobile devices later this week -- a move we figured would happen soon now that it's splashed other autoplaying videos all over the place. Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Journal claims Facebook will announce the change later today, with the first ads rolling out on Thursday. Previous rumors have put the run time for ads at 15 seconds or so -- a fit for Instagram video -- and this rumor even says movie studio Lions Gate will be among the first using it, pushing mini trailers for its upcoming movie Divergent. So, why is Facebook reportedly tossing in one more thing for you to quickly scroll past? Because it can charge advertisers much more for video ads, which will play whether or not users click on them (like user videos, they're silent unless clicked), letting it grab some of the money usually marked for TV campaigns. Previous rumors claimed the hold up in bringing video ads to the social network is because they loaded too slowly, so it would appear that hurdle has been cleared -- we'll see if load times are enough to keep users from running to other services once their feed looks like a sponsored version of Vine.
Facebook brings auto-playing videos to mobile devices and the web
We'd heard about Facebook experimenting with auto-playing videos in its news feeds on mobile (see it in action after the break), but now the change is rolling out widely no matter where you're wasting time from. TechCrunch confirmed the new feature (recently added to the changelog on iOS) is coming to all mobile users, and today learned it's expanding on the desktop as well. Now, Facebook's feeds are more like Vine and especially Instagram, particularly the latter since sound remains muted until the videos are actually clicked. Of course, this is about more than just adding a few extra views to the counter, as it could lead to autoplaying video ads in the feed, which have been rumored for quite some time and are expected to launch next year.
Microsoft to malware: your AutoRunning days on Windows are numbered
Beware, malware. The Windows AutoRun updates for Vista and XP SP3 that Microsoft released in February have so far proven successful in thwarting your file corrupting ways. Although Windows 7 was updated to disable AutoPlay within AutoRun for USB drives -- freezing the ability for a virus to exploit it -- the aforementioned versions had remained vulnerable up until right after January. Fast-forward to the period between February and May of this year, and the updates have reduced the number of incidents by 1.3 million compared to the three months prior for the supported Vista and XP builds. Amazingly, when stacked against May of last year, there was also a 68 percent decline in the amount of incidents reported across all builds of Windows using Microsoft's Malicious Software Remove Tool. There's another fancy graph after the break to help illustrate, and you'll find two more along with a full breakdown by hitting the source link down under.
Video autoplay on Apple.com?
Am I the only one who is annoyed that every time I go to Apple.com I am presented with one of the new ads. I wouldn't mind it too much if I had to make them play, but no Apple has decided that you must watch them. Didn't autoplaying video on websites go out of fashion with those 'Under construction' gifs and the Blink tag?
