This has been a pretty big year for Facebook in terms of video. With lofty advertising plans, suggested videos and embedable auto-play videos, it seems that Facebook is doing what they can to cement their place in the online video arena. Currently, Facebook is testing a new feature that may help become more of a direct competitor with YouTube.
It looks like Facebook has been testing a new “Watch Later” button that gives users the ability to flag a video so that they can watch it later at their own convenience. The button was first spotted for desktop viewers as a small overlay in the upper right corner. The Watch Later button is similar to the Facebook Save feature that was launched a year ago. We’ve been hearing about how Facebook has been pushing video content on their social network lately, and this gives marketers another reason to push video content on Facebook.
By adding a Watch Later video feature to Facebook, this could possibly make users stay on the site longer, while allowing them to comeback and check out the videos they want to watch at their own leisure. Of course, the Watch Later feature isn’t exactly new, as YouTube has had this feature for quite a while no on their own site, so it’s nothing totally exciting. But in reality, it gives us more reason to want to stick around on Facebook.
For more information, see the report from TechCrunch. Image courtesy of TechCrunch.