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Facebook's video ads will now automatically play on mobile.
Facebook’s video ads will now automatically play on mobile. Photograph: dpa picture alliance archive / A/Alamy
Facebook’s video ads will now automatically play on mobile. Photograph: dpa picture alliance archive / A/Alamy

Facebook video app ads will now auto-play on mobile – Open thread

This article is more than 9 years old

Have your say on the latest change to social network’s news feed, as well as Kim Dotcom, Stephen Hawking, Stampy and more

Facebook’s introduction of video advertisements has been relatively uncontroversial – at least compared to some other changes the social network has made to its news feed in recent years.

Now the latest tweak has been announced in a blog post for developers. “With more and more people uploading, sharing and discovering videos on Facebook, marketers are finding video to be an important asset to drive key business metrics,” explained software engineer Jun Li.

“Moving forward, when eligible, video mobile app ads will play automatically in News Feed.”

This means you’re likely to be seeing more videos of apps playing in your feed – I suspect Kate Upton swishing through a battlefield for Game of War is likely to be one of the first to benefit – in the hope that you’ll install them.

If you use Facebook, what’s your take on how it has introduced video, and automatic plays of video ads? There were worries a year ago that this kind of feature would hoover up mobile data in particular, but have you taken the step of disabling auto-playing unless you’re on Wi-Fi?

(Here’s how to do that, by the way.)

The comments section is open for your thoughts, not just on today’s story, but on how ads are working in Facebook more generally, and how you’d like to see that evolve.

What else is happening in the technology world today? Here are some links that may be worth discussing:

Kim Dotcom launching Internet Party in the US

The Megaupload mogul may still be battling extradition from New Zealand to the US, but his political ambitions are heading to America. “The Internet Party is coming to the United States in 2015,” he tweeted this week. Although the party’s first campaign in New Zealand was a flop: it barely registered with voters in the company’s recent election.

Stephen Hawking’s new comms system

SwiftKey has lots of happy Android and iOS owners using its keyboard replacement app, but now it’s also powering the communications tech being used by Stephen Hawking, through a partnership with Intel. Apparently the ACAT system has doubled his typing speed, and will be made available for other people with motor neurone disease and quadriplegia in 2015.

What’s different about Chinese mobile apps?

Dan Grover is a product manager on WeChat, the Chinese messaging app that’s got nearly as many users as western rivals WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. So how do Chinese apps differ from their rivals from the US and Europe? He’s written an interesting blog post on user interface trends in his adopted country.

YouTube star Stampy now has a mobile app

ENORMOUS PARENTAL KLAXON: Stampy is one of the most popular YouTube channels in the world thanks to his child-friendly Minecraft videos. Now they’re available in an app: iOS initially, but Android will likely follow. And if you’re not a parent of a child between six and 10, this will pass you by, but if you are, it’s likely to be an essential download.

Anita Sarkeesian’s latest games video

Playing with Privilege: 25 invisible benefits of gaming while male, following her series of Tropes vs Women in Video Games critiques.

What do you think of the stories above? The comments section is open for your views, as well as your suggestions for other links worth checking out.

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