Facebook Announces Launch of Television App
February 14 2017 - 3:56PM
Dow Jones News
By Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook Inc. is launching a television app.
On Tuesday, the social-media giant announced a soon-to-come app
that will allow users to stream videos in their news feed through
set-top boxes such as Apple Inc.'s Apple TV and Amazon.com Inc.'s
Fire TV as well as Samsung Electronics Co.'s internet-connected
TVs.
The video app, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is the
latest example of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's effort to
transform Facebook into a "video-first" company and compete for TV
ad dollars.
Through the new video app, users can watch videos shared by
friends or publishers and public figures they follow. It will also
showcase top live broadcasts from around the world as well as
videos a user has saved to watch later or already watched, shared
or uploaded. Facebook also plans to recommend videos to users based
on their interests.
"We want people to be able to consume content wherever they are
-- whether it's on their phone, whether it's on their computer --
and TV is just another screen for that," said Dan Rose, Facebook's
vice president of partnerships.
Facebook also made three other video-oriented changes Tuesday,
including automatically playing sound in videos in a user's news
feed if the user's phone isn't on silent. The same will be true of
video ads.
Facebook introduced a tweak to make videos shot vertically look
better on mobile devices and a picture-in-picture feature so users
can watch videos while scrolling through their news feed.
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 14, 2017 15:41 ET (20:41 GMT)
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