Since the social the network made its debut, Facebook only served as a location where people and companies can showcase their various original content. Now, although the company insisted that it’s not a media company, it is looking to add a variety of original video content on its platform.
Recode reports that Ricky Van Veen, which was the co-founder of College Humor and who joined the company earlier this year, is the man leading Facebook’s efforts of gathering an array of original video content. The company is in talks with various TV studios as well as other video producers regarding the licensing of shows.
Facebook is interested in acquiring or developing a wide variety of scripted or unscripted shows, as well as sports. This recent effort builds on the company’s previous media deals with companies like Vox Media, which will produce live content exclusively for the social network. According to Van Veen, Facebook is interested in creating an ecosystem of third-party content.
Although most of the current deals involve purchasing its own content via licensing and from the outset, Facebook is also considering to develop original video content in the manner of companies like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. Unfortunately, nothing specific has been revealed in this regard.
Facebook currently benefits from the large number of videos its users create and watch for and on the platform. As such, it is unclear why they want to adopt a riskier practice of acquiring or developing original video content. Most think it has to do with Facebook imagining the future for its platform, and media in general. It previously emphasized that video will be the main form of communications and content delivery.
As such, the company recently added a video tab to the platform earlier this year. However, it is still far from sites like YouTube. By creating and acquiring their own library of original video content, Facebook could gradually become a destination for watching a wide variety of videos. This could help the company create a clear path to monetization for its users and partners. This feature, in turn, will lead to more content and increasingly bigger audiences.
These are ambitious plans for Facebook which keeps maintaining that it is a tech and not a media company.
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