In what some are heralding as the death of the written word on social media, a Facebook VP has proclaimed that the platform will be dominated by video in the near future.
Echoing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s sentiments predicting the rise of visual media, Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn offered the statement at a conference in London on Tuesday. Mendelsohn said the social network would “definitely” be mobile, and would “probably” be “all video” in the span of a half-decade.
“The best way to tell stories in this world, where so much information is coming at us, actually is video,” stated Mendelsohn, who heads the company’s operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. “It conveys so much more information in a much quicker period. So actually the trend helps us to digest much more information.”
Considering Facebook’s push into live-streaming, the statement won’t come as much of a surprise to followers of the social network. Facebook has also rolled out a few relevant updates with the aim of specifically increasing the adoption of video on its platform. First, in March, it modified its News Feed algorithm to bestow more prominence to Facebook Live broadcasts, which now appear at the top of your feed. Just last week, it brought videos to comments on posts. Do you see where this is going?
Whether you’re posting a status or interacting with a friend, Facebook evidently wants you to utilize visual media because that way you’re likely to share something personal, and reveal more about yourself.
In the past it relied on standalone apps in its bid to achieve the same result, but that venture failed. This time, it has brought the video party to its main platform, where it can promote its new features to its built-in audience of 1.65 billion users.
Mendelsohn added that virtual reality and 360-degree videos (two fields that Facebook has waded in to) will soon be “commonplace,” reports Quartz. “We’re seeing a year-on-year decline of text … If I was having a bet I’d say: video, video, video,” she stated.
Mendelsohn’s comments can also be applied to wider industry trends. As we pointed out in the latest chapter of our ongoing feature on the history of social networking, live-streaming and video functionality are now integrated into the biggest social media platforms. Additionally, Snapchat — one of the fastest growing social apps — is primarily reliant on visual messaging. With 10 billion video views taking place on Snapchat each day, and Facebook boasting that video engagement on its platform is unparalleled, it seems that users are driving this change.
