Facebook Adds New Features for 360-degrees Videos

Facebook adds new features for 360-degrees videos and video analytics software.

Facebook’s most recent update contains new features for 360-degrees video creators which can improve a viewer’s overall experience. The update also adds a slew of video-metric analytic tools that helps publishers able to learn more about their audiences.

One of the main issues of 360-degrees videos is that the viewer can choose for himself where to look. Although this kind of freedom is amazing, it also obstructs the creative design of the makers. They couldn’t not direct viewers on certain portions and areas of the video. With over 250, 000 360 videos uploaded to Facebook so far, this was starting to become a problem, which Facebook manages to address with the new features.

The first of the new features is called Guide and allows for 360 video content creators that use Facebook as a sharing platform, to identify specific parts of the clip they want viewers to pay attention to. The Guide feature is indicated to users by a circular symbol on the right side of the video. When it is enabled, it will make the video automatically move to the areas which the creators selected. Guide is enabled by default but viewers can disable it if they want to direct the point of view themselves. Facebook hopes this way, content creators can tell a story without fearing that the viewer will miss out on the important parts.

The other new features, Heatmap, is a new analytics tool designed especially for video makers.  It allows them to see what people looked at inside their 360 video, tracking which parts have been watched the most and offers a visualization of ‘hottest’ parts of the respective clip. As a content creator, you’ll only have access to Heatmap on videos with over 50, 000 unique viewers posted starting with April onward. Creators can use this feature to select what area of a video they want in their Guide.

Facebook is also releasing the new analytic tools for creators of video of all types. A new audience demographic dashboard will show minutes viewed classified by age, location, and gender. Live video creators will be able to track which moments got the most comments, reactions, and likes.

Slowly but steadily, Facebook pushes into the video territory, delivering features that publishers and viewers requested, in the hopes of a smooth but inevitable transition to video from text and photos.

Image source: Facebook