Facebook to Support Spherical Interactive Video in News Feed
Mar 26, 2015
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These 360-degree interactive videos are shot with up to 24 cameras at a time, allowing the viewer to change the point of view in any direction. It is much like Google Street View, except you can look up or down as well, and you do so while the video keeps playing.
The immersive videos will also be available on the Oculus Rift 3D goggles headset, made by Facebook’s recent acquisition, Oculus VR.
Despite Virtual Reality being associated mainly with gaming, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expects VR video to be more engaging.
The new feature was announced at F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference, with live broadcasts planned to be supported at a later stage as well.
Facebook’s announcement comes just under two weeks after Google started allowing users to upload 360-degree videos onto YouTube.
It seems like both service are not 100% ready yet, but there’s no doubt left that VR and augmented reality are one of the main directions in which the video and content worlds are heading.
While Zuckerberg did not reveal when these videos will be hitting our News Feeds, he gave a quick demonstration showing how it will look and work.
We recently saw some great 360-degree interactive in the Dubai360 project, but that video is currently available only on the custom built website.
[via CNET]
Liron Samuels
Liron Samuels is a wildlife and commercial photographer based in Israel. When he isn’t waking up at 4am to take photos of nature, he stays awake until 4am taking photos of the night skies or time lapses. You can see more of his work on his website or follow him on Facebook.
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One response to “Facebook to Support Spherical Interactive Video in News Feed”
“…aa, people already watch more than 3 billion videos a day, in news feed…”.
Yeah, but it’s not like they do it by their own will, because of the f-king auto play.
“…and it it’s some of the most engaging content on our system…”
Yes, and most of the content is freebooted, from other sources.