Facebook executive: Your News Feed will likely be “all video” in 5 years | Hacker News Reader

Facebook executive: Your News Feed will likely be “all video” in 5 years

niemanlab.org

15 pointsdanso26 comments

People have been saying this since the invention of the television. I can read much faster than I can listen to someone talking. If I had a disability this might be useful, however since I don't I'll pass, thanks.

Also let me know when I can "skim" a video.. whatever that would mean?

Skimming a text seems to be a skill that is on the decline.

I thought that videos presenting a tool or library was a fad, but now I suspect that watching a video is actually faster and more convenient than reading a text, for a lot of young people.

This concerns me a bit, since it is very time inefficient. I can skim a whole book in a minute. Webpages are harder, but still much quicker than waiting for some schmuck droning on and on in a video.

Do you know of any resources or tips to improve skimming skills? I am impressed that you can skim a book in a minute (even skimming a sentence or two per chapter might take longer than that for me).

I've been trying to improve my reading speed - I feel like it's actually degraded over time - but I don't know that I am making much progress.

I guess just read a lot of books, and keep doing it for several years. I learned to read when I was four, so I can't really remember, but I don't think I've gotten any faster since I was 16 or so. At that time I think I read for at least one hour, more or less every night.

The new crop of young people actually read more than previous generations.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/millen...

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/09/10/younger-americans-and-...

Videos will never become the majority of content I consume. My requirements to make this a reality are not going to happen any time soon.

1. Videos must contain absolutely no fluff. If the video could have been made 20 seconds long, then it must be 20 seconds long. It is unacceptable for the video to be 60 seconds long with unnecessary filler content, intros/outros, "please like and subscribe", etc. If the "moment" of your video is your child saying something funny, it had better be a 5 second video of the quote; a 5 minute video of your child playing, with something funny said at 3:45 into the video is not even remotely acceptable.

2. I only watch video if I have headphones in. I don't always have headphones in. You're going to have to invent sound isolating, in-ear implants that can be turned on and off on demand, to replace my $1500 IEMs that I have to manually insert and remove to switch between interacting with the real world vs. my device.

3. Social awkwardness. I will never be comfortable recording myself for every update, and furthermore will never have the patience to invest the time required to edit my own videos to comply with the requirements of point #1 above.

tldr; "All video" is pure bullshit. I can't see myself producing video content to share, and I do not have the patience nor the time to watch other people's overly long videos.

Don't worry about point 3 - your role is to watch videos, not produce them.

True enough. I hadn't considered the fact that the majority of FaceBook video - at least today - is advertising (some direct, much of it advertising disguised as "content"), and a lot of cause-of-the-day spam.

My initial thought went to the idea that normal users would communicate primarily via video, by posting personal videos pertaining to themselves and their relationships with others. But of course on FaceBook, the users are the product, and we are being sold to the real market which are the businesses. What a world we live in.

You can speed up a video, a feature of lecture videos in the Coursera courses I've taken. With pitch adjustment, it's surprising how much better even a good lecture is when speeded up. But you can't edit out superfluous content.

It seems to me that the future of online video is exemplified by the recipe videos produced by Gawker that appear in the Facebook feed under names like "Tasty". These speeded-up cooking videos allow the viewer to skim how a dish is put together, from start to finish, in about 30 seconds. (I watched one just now that took 55 seconds and I found myself impatient with its slow pace!)

In their simple, junk-foodie way, these videos illustrate that the measure of quality is not just how quickly and efficiently information is transmitted to the brain, but also the degree of emotional impact.

That said, you can't deny the power that television has had on information consumption. They had a massive negative impact on the newspaper industry, such that even before the Internet, there were few cities that had more than one newspaper. The Internet has hit TV properties hard, a lot easier to name big TV networks than it is big newspapers.

I think it's even more accurate to say that TV and movie entertainment continues to dominate. HBO only recently gave in to opening its gates to the Internet; they were doing just fine producing new series and important documentaries. It's impossible to think of a premium print brand that can blow money on prestige products the way that HBO or its competitors can.

And of course, the movie industry is still going strong.

I agree that text is a more universal portable interface for transmitting information. But that's not a quality that hugely matters to consumers, compared to ease of consumption, nevermind the power of the visual medium.

The game-changing element about social video is that, unlike TV, people have the ability to create video nearly as easy as they consume it. I like reading letters as much as anyone...but I can definitely see why video will be seen as a much more engaging way to communicate for participants...less so for archivists, unfortunately.

1. If video is superior to text to convey information, why isn't this article a video?

2. They mention that text is declining year over year... I don't think they can expect this trend to entirely phase out text... seems like more users are gaining the ability to post videos and images (increasing smartphone ownership and better access to mobile data) and utilising it in addition to text.

3. Facebook is pushing towards video because prefacing videos with an ad is acceptable whereas the same cannot be done with text or images.

> '.. phase out text ..'

It sounds like a reflection on our tech culture - we are so advanced that people do not need to read ??

Point 2 seems significant. It's like charting the rise in time spent on email and predicting that eventually we will be reading emails 24/7 without ever sleeping.

Someone (who hopefully isn't doing analysis work) has failed to differentiate "increased access to video posting" from "increasing desire to post videos".

I know it's not a statement of intent, but the quote nonetheless makes them implicitly sound like they'll be taking on Youtube, Twitch, Snapchat. Those are some big crosshairs. On two of those platforms, you can consume content without being logged-in. The third, Snapchat, you're always your pseudonymous identity. All of them allow you to cultivate a personality that's distinct from your real-life one.

I think they overestimate the likelihood and volume of people with real-name identities posting video content.

Thats okay, the majority of the video would be stolen from youtube anyway

I do not believe that, nor do i want that. I can read way faster than I can watch.

Same here. Apart from instructional videos, I avoid video at all costs. Takes too long. Interrupts my workflow. Is not office friendly. Video ads are way more annoying and waste bandwidth.

I can't recall any useful video in my news feed thus far.

Looking at the trends towards more video, forced video, intrusive ads, I really see my WWW usage declining going forwards.

Well, that would be the nail in the coffin for my interest in using Facebook. I have auto-play off for News Feed videos, and I'm pretty sure it's been months since I engaged with a video that I found there. It's my least favorite form of content in mixed settings, I frequently use Facebook in places where playing sound is out of the question, and it's almost always less content rich than text or image.

I'm not sure if this is a statement of intent or a prediction about trends, but if it pans out it will render the News Feed worthless to me.

That's so true. All the text and photos and the users that need them will move off Facebook to a new platform where you don't broadcast yourself.

I'll likely stop visiting facebook in five years.

Do not want.

Hyping up videos so they can sell more ads?

no it won't... cause I don't have a "Face Book News Feed" ;-)

And all of them auto play

And play ads...

Oh god no

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