b. SOCIAL

2018 will be a pivotal year for Facebook’s video ambitions

Facebook video is becoming even more significant in 2018. Last February, during an earnings call with investors, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined why his company was making significant investments in video: “I see video as a megatrend,” Zuckerberg said. “That’s why I’m going to keep putting video first across our family of apps.”

Heeding his word, Facebook ramped up the investment it was making in video throughout the year. Even more so than it did in 2016, when Facebook first started paying publishers and other video makers to create content, Facebook poured a lot of money into becoming a video destination that could rival existing giants such as YouTube and Netflix. In a wave that was reminiscent of how Verizon started cutting checks for its Go90 streaming service, Facebook bought a lot of original content to populate its new YouTube-esque video-viewing section Watch.