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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

Videos on facebook auto-play in silence as you scroll through your feed. It's only once you click on them that sound is enabled.

Given the 85% figure - I would not be surprised if the "watched" metrics simply means it loads the video and begins playing it.

That means potentially only 15% of all facebook videos are actually engaged on.

We need more data on how long someone needs to view the video to consider it "watched." The way I understand it [1], is that facebook counts any video as watched so long as it shows - much like adwords impressions. Only if it goes equal to or past 10 seconds is it counted differently.

I read this as indicating that facebook video ads aren't particularly engaging.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1582420952009573

View on HN

"I read this as indicating that facebook video ads aren't particularly engaging."

I wonder if most of everything isn't particularly engaging for many people. Think about how much you skim most articles, comments, photo series, how you use your phone while watching TV, etc. Watch someone use Instagram and often they'll look at a photo for a fraction of a second before moving on or giving out a double-tap.

"how you use your phone while watching TV"

I find myself doing this all the time, even when the show is engaging. I'll automatically open Reddit and start scrolling through the front page, and before I know it I missed 5 minutes of the show. I do it on autopilot, and it annoys and scares me.

Oh yes. I do that a lot with HackerNews, actually. The show goes to one screen, HN goes to the other. I usually start skimming the site when the show gets "slower", only to realize few minutes later that I missed an important part of the action. An annoying habit I try to fight off.

I think it stems from the need to have the brain occupied to some level, and the show reaching close, but not to, that level. I feel the need to add something to cross the boundary. Eating while watching helps (it seems to require just enough cognitive effort to reach the comfort level), but it has its own bad side effects (like scheduling meals to the shows).

Why I quit reddit and uninstalled all the quick games on my phone. After a while I lost the compulsion but it's an interesting experiment to show yourself just how often you're opening your phone for drivel.

A while back I instituted a personal rule that I am not allowed to use my phone or laptop while watching TV or a movie. My rationale is that if I am uninterested enough in the show to need additional distraction, the show is not a good use of my time and I should just turn it off. It was really hard to get out of the habit, but it's worked pretty well for me. I find that I understand and enjoy the shows I'm watching more, and I also watch less TV because I more consciously notice when I'm getting bored, and I go do something else.

You might find this podcast[0] (and his[1] other writings on the subject very interesting.

Cal Newport discusses "Deep Work" and how deep, concentrated, uninterrupted focus is 1) becoming more rare these days with so many feed, notifications, devices, etc. and 2) absolutely essential to being productive and successful in almost any field in today's society / economy.

It's more interesting than I'm describing. Cal's insights into learning, research, lifestyle, studying were very influential on my study habits and mindset during college. Check him out.

[0] https://www.33voices.com/interviews/deep-work

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Cal-Newport/e/B001IGNR0U

These days, I only watch TV (usually through Amazon Prime) on my iPad while using the treadmill or stationary bike. That consumes enough of my attention—and makes it enough of a pain to use my hands—that it prevents the urge to do a third activity while watching. (Plus it's healthy!)

I will do it while watching a movie, except I'll often pause the movie to check a couple of sites (that I've already checked within the last 30 minutes) and before long it's taken me 6 hours across 2-3 nights to watch a 2 hour movie.

It's pretty stupid behaviour. Procrastinating even while relaxing.

I realised this is why I've been enjoying shows with subtitles recently (some anime titles on netflix) because it forces you to watch the show without the constant phone checking.

I read it different. From personal experience alone I watch a lot of videos on FB fully without ever clicking to listen the audio. And several content producers are adapting to this by creating video where audio is optional. With subtitles or sometimes it is nothing more than a "animated slide presentation". But also videos like highlights of NBA games.

I watch those food prep videos without sound every time.

I do that a lot too, often I don't care to listen to the sound or am in a place where it would be inconvenient to listen.

I'd like to point out that this is but a single data point.

You can say that any time anyone says anything (and on HN someone usually does), but if you think about it for more than half a second, actually it is more than a single data point if multiple content producers are optimizing video for silent viewing.

Content creators usually tweak their content to increase their metrics, whether those metrics translate in more engagement is different.

> You can say that any time anyone says anything (and on HN someone usually does)

As well they should, personal anecdotes rarely contribute much to the conversation.

It's a conversation-demolishing verbal tic, along with incantations about causation and correlation, straw people, ad homunculi and the like. Avoiding these helps conversations stay conversations rather than tedious protocol.

Some of us find conversations that devolve into these things to be incredibly frustrating to be part of. People love to share anecdotes about themselves but rarely care much for others peoples' anecdotes.

Before sharing that you prefer pepsi over coke you should ask yourself whether you care at all that some stranger on the internet prefers coke over pepsi. Assuming the answer is 'no', then why bother sharing these sorts of things yourself.

Facebook considers videos viewed after 3 seconds, and YouTube after 30. Instagram after 3, but it counts unique users and not views. Twitter is when someone clicks, and Vine is when someone finishes one loop of the video.

http://marketingland.com/whats-a-video-view-on-facebook-only...

I'm one of the 85% – I typically watch vids in silence when I'm commuting, especially if I'm already listening to music

Same, but on Twitter. The political interview tweets I see often add subtitles because they understand this phenomenon.

I think this is significant. If facebook starts interrupting my music I would use it far less.

5 seconds is their metric for a view

in their ads interface it breaks it down by completion percentage.

I thought it was three seconds, did they change it?

My mistake you're right it's 3 seconds

http://i.imgur.com/FI2FcOf.png

HN won't let me correct my original post because I didn't notice this until now

source:

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/743427195703387

And if you have set auto load on, they basically pre load the first 3 seconds and that counts as a view if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks.

Seems like 5 seconds is a good threshold to determine if someone is going to stay or move along - I assume they rigorously got to this number.

I suppose the next question would be can you correlate the enabling of sound to that 5 second metric, and if so, what is the difference in engagement?

I only wonder further because dialing in ad engagement, especially as it relates to seconds of interactions, is a really interesting way to determine value of these ad plays.

5 seconds seems to short unless paired with page/mouse position, I regularly notice that videos will start playing when they are 2/3rds on the page and I'm read or looking at a picture above it only to scroll right past the video as soon as I register it's of no interest to me.

Advertisers already know this which is why more and more FB videos include subtitles and (the smarter advertisers) will communicate whatever message they're trying to land in the first few seconds of the video.

So even if not 'engaged' with the video still does its job.

Yup – and, as a result, at least one ad tech company has emerged to meet advertisers' need for video caption copywriting, design, and automated testing. And they have customers.

They address the engagement issue in the article, but not in a particularly convincing way : "Internal studies conducted by the agency showed that KPIs like brand lift and intent to purchase were not affected by whether the viewer watched the video with the sound on or off" I wonder if they are actually measuring engagement over a complete feed stream, or just some subset of videos that were allowed to play longer than 10s (guaranteeing a baseline level of engagement).

I view it as much of facebook usage is at work or other public places where people don't want sound. :-)

Most people have headsets.

I think headsets at work is a tech thing. Most of the world doesn't get to wear them all the time.

I almost exclusively use FB on my phone. Anecdotally, I see similar behavior from most of my friends. Yes, many people have headphones for their phones. But my guess is that they are not plugged in most of the time people use their phone, and they're unlikely to plug them in for a brief video.

Most people? Hardly. Of the minority of people that have headsets, a minority thereof are willing to pull them out of their bag to listen to some advertisements.

Also video player is one huge click-machine. Every major player allows you to pause by clicking on video player window, Facebook instead opens player in new "window" with suggested content. I bet this accounts for a lot plays as well. Same way Google was inflating Bing visits by adding dedicated, extremely sensitive search button to Windows mobiles.

The article states 3 seconds is a view. If I'm on desktop and stop to read a post above or below an autoplay video then it would likely count as a view. I'm sure some people do watch video without sound but I agree the 85% figure is likely misleading.

Often times when I'm on Facebook I'm killing time somewhere it is inappropriate to have audio playing...

So, they can be just gif, then.

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