Facebook introduced the concept of Watch tab on its platform at the end of August 2017. The Watch tab is a separate video viewing hub that the social media platform has introduced for its users to view original programming content sponsored by third party companies and other media partners. On September 5, the social media platform finally rolled out this new feature to all users in the United States. Previously, in August, the feature was given a limited roll out to test its potential and over the last week, some more users reported of getting the feature.
However, now the Watch tab will be available to one and all in the stateside.
Watch tab for one and all
Starting Tuesday, September 5, the Watch tab would be available for viewing on Facebook’s desktop site, its mobile application, and also on its TV apps. The Watch tab will allow the users to subscribe to their favorite online programs instead of just viewing random videos on the Newsfeed that we currently do now. The Facebook users based in the United States will now see a small TV icon embedded within the desktop site’s bookmark section and in the navigation bar of the mobile app.
While rolling out the Watch video viewing tab for its users, the social media platform is also in talks with the music labels to ensure that user generated videos using music and songs, Facebook has no copyright over is not taken down by the major record labels.
According to reports, Facebook is offering lots of money to the music records to let the infringing user generated videos to stay put on the platform rather than removing them causing great grievances to the users. To come to a solution, the music owners and Facebook have come to pact where it has been decided that the social media platform will be developing a system that would identify the infringing uses of music and will, in turn, notify the owners of the same.
The music records would then settle the matter over monetary gain rather than just taking down the video. However, such as intricate system would take years to build, which is why Facebook is ready to pay now to let the user generated content stay on its platform.
A range of videos on offer
The Facebook Watch video viewing tab will be offering its users some options to discover original video content for viewing.
The content has been segregated into categories such as, “New This Week,” “Today’s Spotlight,” “Popular Now,” “Suggested For You,” and “10 Minutes Or More”, which is special. Currently, Facebook is focusing on reality programming as they are cheap and does not require detailed scripts to work on. However, in the long run, the social media platform will have to bring in dramas and comedy to hook the viewers like Netflix and YouTube.
