In an attempt to increase consumption of videos on their social platform, Facebook is releasing dedicated video-focused app on smart TVs. After making its way to Samsung’s big screens a day ago, the official Facebook Video app has now been made available on tvOS-powered Apple TVs as well. There is currently no word on compatibility but your fourth-gen Apple TV should be able to run with it just fine.
Facebook is advertising its Video app as one of the primary sources of video content consumption on the interwebs. After installing the app, you just need to log in with your Facebook account to start surfing through and viewing videos. In this video app, there is a complete lack of what we know as the News Feed, so you’ll not be able to see status or photo updates from your friends.
This app is solely focused on providing relatable video content from your News Feed — those shared by your friends or Pages you’re following on the platform. It will also include video recommendations based on your interests and your viewing history. These play one of the important roles of capturing people’s interest to view new content and making them stay. The recommendations form a backbone for the success of such video platforms — as we’ve already seen on YouTube.
The Facebook Video is currently live and can be downloaded through the tvOS play store for free. It has already started appearing in the featured section of the store as well. As for the description offered with the app, it reads under (via 9to5Google),
Enjoy Facebook videos on your TV screen. Watch videos from friends and Pages you follow, top live videos, and recommended videos, or revisit favorites that you’ve watched or shared on Facebook.
- Sit back, relax, and enjoy Facebook videos on TV
- Stay up to date on videos shared by your friends and people and Pages you follow
- Tune into popular live videos
- Discover new videos with recommendations based on your interests
- Catch up on saved videos or revisit favorites you’ve watched or shared
On Facebook’s part, this can be seen an aggressive push towards bulking up their video efforts. The company had announced its plans to release dedicated video apps for smart TVs a couple weeks ago. Since there was no mention of a scheduled timeline, we assumed the social media giant might start building the apps and release them sooner or later. But, this soon a release has definitely surprised us. It is now only Amazon’s Fire TV that’s to receive the app.
With these releases, the social media giant has gone out on a limb to extend their reach to the large screen in search of higher revenues. Earlier last year, it has mentioned that its revenue streams had peaked and they were now looking for new avenues to extend the reach of their platform while bringing in new sources of revenue.
