Facebook’s Video Ads

Autoplayed videos; oh, how I loathe thee! I’ve been grousing about this for years. And now, NOW Facebook wants to launch into the space. Grrrr…

The radio piece I heard this morning didn’t  have much, except stating the auto-play piece. Reading this article on AdAge gives a bit more balance. Apparently, scrolling or swiping past will stop them from playing. And the mobile app won’t play them unless you’re on wifi. I guess that’s better than some of the ways these are executed, but still…

What I find most interesting, though, is their eagerness. Yes, this has a large revenue potential ($1 *10^6/day, plus the ability to deeply refine their  targeting), but, BUTTTTT I don’t know anyone who isn’t annoyed by them. I wonder how much this will alienate users, perhaps driving them somewhere else? Ok, I really don’t think that this will drive a max influx of Google+ users, but I do believe it will drive a lot of people to download Adblock, or one of it’s kindred products.