The competition in the online video streaming services industry has just become far more intense following the launch of Facebook's very own online video service Facebook Watch. The company had been planning something of this nature for quite a while. The service is going to be launched among a limited number of users in the United States tomorrow. According to a spokesperson who spoke to TechCrunch, the company hopes that Facebook users will eventually be able to choose from among thousands of shows.

New horizon for Facebook

A limited number of users in the United States will be able to access the Facebook Watch button on their Facebook profiles. The feature will be available on both mobile and desktop. These are new horizons for Facebook, but it seems that the company has devised a strategy that is totally different from streaming services like Netflix. The exclusive content will be produced by Facebook's partners, and the ad revenue from the shows will be shared between them. The producers will collect 55% of the ad revenue while the rest will go to Facebook.

Facebook has also stated that eventually Facebook Watch will be made available all users in the United States and will eventually go global.

The company spokesperson told TechCrunch that Facebook has financed a few shows, but the majority of the shows have been produced by production partners. However, the platform will be made accessible to a larger number of content producers in the future. He went on to say, “We want any publisher/creator who is interested to be able to create a show in the future. So there will be hundreds of shows at launch, and we’ll hopefully scale to thousands."

So, what's in store?

Now that the service is going to be available, Facebook users will be keen to know what exactly is in store for them. Video content starting from reality TV and scripted shows to live sports events will be made available on Facebook Watch.

Among the sporting events, Facebook Watch will stream one game of Major League Baseball every week, and in addition to that, there will be a plethora of scripted shows and reality TV to choose from. Cooking shows and documentary series will also be a major part of the Facebook Watch line up.

Earlier this week Disney announced that the company is going to launch their own streaming service in 2019, and Facebook's entry into the industry is a timely move. Be that as it may, the consumer will be the winner at the end of the day.