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Internet communities fly into tizzies whenever Facebook makes a change to its user interface, but its recent rollout of video advertising should come as no surprise to its subscribers. The social network has been talking about launching video ads for months — another lure for advertisers that the company needs to keep raking in to prove it’s still relevant. But Facebook has been making other changes as well that appeal to more than just the marketers it needs to make money.
A “Donate Now” button launched on December 15 is part of Facebook’s new Donate feature that allows people on the network to directly contribute to non-profit organizations that have pages. As users will now be able to contribute to the nonprofit by paying directly through Facebook, the network is improving a service it has long wanted to make part of its main experience. If users become more acclimated to paying through Facebook — and trust the service — it could be a more direct way to connect them with purchasing products advertised across the network.
Another new feature appears on Facebook’s mobile app, as reported on December 17: a “dislike” button. As part of a group of so-called stickers available to paste into Facebook Messenger chats, a thumbs-down sticker fulfills what users have been asking for since the inception of the “like” button. While really more of an emoticon than a mechanism, this new feature also arrives around the same time that a “sympathize” button emerges as a potential option for future changes to the user interface having been developed during a hackathon.
Video ads are just the natural next step for the network; Facebook has described that videos themselves that occur in a user’s newsfeed will begin to play automatically without sound, and will play sound should a user click on the video. Naturally, most users are outraged — as they usually are whenever Facebook alters the structure of its content — but such ire rarely results in an actual impact on the network’s subscriber base.
Why does a 1.2 billion-large network need to worry about relevance anyway? It’s reported slow-but-steady dropping numbers of young users have investors worried. Facebook’s last couple of earnings reports have included admissions by executives to the network’s dwindling favor with teenagers — a worrisome fact since younger folks are the growing generation of internet and mobile users. It’s next set of feature rollouts are going to have to cater to them if it doesn’t want to lose favor with a valuable market segment.
