An awful lot of journalists were fired between 2015-17 because their companies went with a “video strategy” influenced strongly by Facebook’s claimed video ad revenues and Facebook’s direct encouragement of their media partners to pivot to video and away from a written product.
That didn’t pan out the way anyone expected, however. Video engagement was far lower than expected and revenues followed suit. As a result of all of this a lot of video editors and producers were fired, joining their print journalism colleagues on the unemployment line. Online media, in many respects, is a flaming hole in the ground at the moment.
Why did the video strategy — which Facebook claimed was the Way and the Truth — not pan out?
Well:
Facebook knew by January 2015 that its video-ad metrics had problems, and understood the nature of the issue within a few months, but sat on that information for more than a year, the plaintiffs claimed in an amended complaint Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland . . . Facebook in 2016 revealed the metrics problem, saying it had “recently discovered” it. The firm told some advertisers that it had probably overestimated the average time spent watching video ads by 60 percent to 80 percent. Tuesday’s filing alleged that Facebook had instead inflated average ad-watching time by 150 percent to 900 percent.
To be clear: the current state of affairs in online media is largely the fault of media companies for desperately and stupidly chasing trends that even a moment’s reflection should’ve revealed were idiotic (note: NO ONE prefers video news content online over print), but it sure as shit doesn’t help that Facebook, allegedly, was lying to everyone about user behavior and ad revenues.
