Facebook Introduces Auto-play Videos for Smartphone Users

Facebook is going to introduce a new feature to auto-play videos for mobile users. The videos playing in the news feed will be in silent mode but if wanted user can expand the clip by selecting on it and it will play audio also. Initially this feature will be available only to the videos posted by individuals, celebrities or musicians. Facebook is the most popular social networking site around the globe in these days with 1.15 billion users and they are planning to explore the new chances of ad placements with the new movement. By introducing the new feature Facebook describes it as "explore how to bring this to marketers in the future" and it will give a new experience to the users to view television like ads.

Facebook is currently testing this feature among a small group of Facebook users to know how the program is working in real environment and also to assess user feedback about the video playing. It is expecting that Facebook will charge corporates $1 million to $2.4 milion for a 15 second auto play video ads.  

Momo Zhou who is the official spokesperson of Facebook commented on the ew program as "Because bringing video to life in a feed is something that's going to really change the way users' experience Facebook. We wanted to sort of tread water lightly and start with this and see how it goes."

With this new feature Facebook is mainly targeting smartphone users with iPhone and Android OS. The auto-play program will be compatible with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS. The auto-playing of videos will be work with the videos which are directly uploaded to Facebook and it won’t support videos with any external application like YouTube.

Momo Zhou further added that the new program will not increase the data usage of users and it will not eaten up the battery power of the devices and there will not be any huge hike in the monthly phone bills.