Facebook to debut auto-play video ads in 2013 (opens in new tab)

These are the most annoying kind ads. Not only do I have to make sure my sound is off (if they implement it like that), they often times are REALLY loud and annoying. I make it a habit to ignore any company that has these kinds of ad offerings and shop a different brand on principle. Depending on how this is implemented, it could really be the final straw for me with Facebook. When Yahoo implemented those ads where it covered the entire screen and you couldn't click anywhere until that ad was exited, I quit using Yahoo. This would be the same level of annoying for me. There has to be other ways to get peoples attention than video ads with sound. Regular video can be ignored, although can still be distracting and annoying. I really hope they avoid defaulted sound or have a way to shut it off with a setting.

adblock them away.

I logged in to Facebook on a friend's computer the other day and was shocked how it looks with ads. I don't know how anyone can use it like that.

Why O Why do the browsers even allow autoplay of video?

The lack of imagination coming from Facebook today in terms of the monetization of their products is disappointing.

Is there really no way that they can make money without pissing of their users? It seems like at that scale there should be new ways that they can try to make money other than simply following the tried and true method of shoving adds down everyone's throat.

The day they do this is the day I delete my account; I've already come pretty close as I've gotten tired of scrolling through the sponsored crap.

Now would be a good time to build The Next Facebook(tm)

Well, a lot of people browse facebook at work when they should probably technically be doing something else.

Auto playing video ads would definitely be a detriment to that.

One of my most memorable "oh shit" moments was being in the office, googling for something programming related and landing on someones hacked blog. I got 301 redirected to some porn site with autoplaying live jasmin popups.

This is a short term revenue grab from Facebook, but one that will probably harm their long term position with the media agencies that buy their inventory.

Autoplay videos have been widely criticised by advertisers and agencies over the past few years. While the interruption is a bad user experience (yes, advertisers do care about that), it's the results that are the issue. Publishers started reporting ridiculously high completion rates, just because the video auto-played and then the user scrolled down.

The result in a lot of markets is that the major media agency groups have stated they will not buy autoplay. What will be interesting to see is if the same groups can say no to Facebook. While I would say most will happily support the move to not buy autoplay, I would fear that most advertisers are so frothy on Facebook that they don't care if their ad interrupts and irritates the user.

The challenge for Facebook (and the leverage the advertisers and agencies will have) is that they need the major advertisers and agency groups. As opposed to text-based ads, you can't rely on the long tail for good-quality video advertising.

(Disclosure: I work for one of the major media agency groups.)

> Smartphone users with bandwidth-capped data service are likely to be particularly annoyed by this, given that Facebook plans to roll out the video ads to both the browser-based version of its service and its mobile apps.

I'm one of the most ad-tolerant people I know but this is a terrible idea.

I still use FB, but less and less, and the day they serve an auto-playing ad with noise is the day I quit.

Unfortunately, most people don't care. That's why we have stupid "punch the monkey" and "free pointers" etc ads.

The way the original article[1] describes them they sound very much like the adverts[2] Youtube uses. They're at the top of the page playing in the background and you're given the option to hover over to activate the sound of the video. They're not wonderful adverts but they're not too inconvenient. All I wish is that Facebook (and any other company that uses adverts) would allow me to pay a fee to hide the adverts. Facebook doesn't mean enough to me to put up with annoying adverts but it means enough that paying $5/m to have a "good" experience when I do use it is something I would do.

[1] http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-preps-bring-video-...

[2] http://i.imgur.com/O0SvF.png

As long as there's no auto play audio I'm absolutely fine with this.

Seriously giving thought about moving from Facebook over to Google+... just a series of shitty updates with Facebook that I cannot be bothered giving time to think about how they effect me.. it's becoming such a cancer it needs to be excised from my life. Currently as it stands the only reason I have it is to stay in touch with family oversea's and my D&D group etc... but I ask myself now.. is that reason enough..

If you're posting here (or even reading this) then I'd guess you have nothing to worry about. Facebook is targeting the 99% of the population who doesn't care about ads and wouldn't know what to do about them anyway. You'll likely be able to block the ads and go about booking faces and whatnot to your heart's content.

Ah this is going to kill my mobile usage of the site, which is the main way I use the Facebook, website version not the app. Theres no way I'm going to incur bandwidth and annoyance of the sound of ad's playing on my phone. Bandwidth would be the key factor since I have a limited mobile trafic cap. But any sites that make noise without me interacting with them annoys the hell outa me.

Other than mobile usage I check the site about 1-2 times a week on my laptop which doesn't have flash installed (I use Chrome for Youtube/flash content sites) so hopefully the ad's aren't html5.

Is there a Chrome extension that blocks flash/html5 video on certain websites? That would certainly solve the annoyance.

If browsing facebook is critical to you you can always use perl. http://qscripts.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/post-to-your-own-face...

That's it. I'm killing my Facebook account, the very instant that these appear.

Once again, if you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold.

Meh! Another reason not to use Facebook.