With the increasing use of Facebork Live as a video streaming service (in competition with Periscope, Youtube, etc., etc), I was ‘amazed’ by the apparently huge viewing figures that videos seemed to be getting.
Then, it started to make sense.
Firstly, Facebork counts a view as anything over 3 seconds. Youtube counts a view as a continuous watching of anything over approximately 30 seconds.
Secondly, and most crucially, Facebork autoplays Facebork Live videos (with the sound off) in absolutely everybody’s timeline, regardless of whether or not the owner of the timeline wants the video to play. By the time they’ve scrolled up because they’re not interested (which stops the playing) or gone to the effort to stop the video, the 3 seconds have passed and counted as a view.
In contrast, a video on Youtube has to be ‘selected’ in order to play for the viewer and count as a view. There are no timelines to autoplay on.
What this means is that a popular person, or organisation (like a news organisation for example), with thousands of followers on Facebork will correspondingly appear to instantly get thousands of views should they use Facebork Live. All very exciting and a massive figure compared to streaming live on Youtube. Very attractive too. But it’s all a lie.
To put themselves on an equal playing field, Facebork should stop the autoplaying on timelines that nobody is actually watching and only count views when a user has actually selected to watch a video. And they need to time it for 30 seconds. Then we’d get the true Facebork Live viewing figures!
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