Social media giant Facebook has decided to take on the video domination challenge by improving its News Feed algorithm so as to provide more quality and relevant videos customized to suit each viewer's preference.

In an article dated June 29, Facebook's Engineering Manager Meihong Wang and Software Engineer Yue Zhuo announced that they have made updates to the News Feed so as to identify which types of videos each individual prefers. This is done by taking into account various factors, such as how long each user watched each videos. Other factors include whether the user chose to turn on the sound while watching the video, or by watching it full screen or in high definition. These are important considerations when identifying which Facebook videos someone prefers.

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Facebook understands that to rule in today's social media oriented society, overwhelming users with videos upon videos isn't the key. For a person to click on a vid, much more like or share it, the media should be interesting enough, and tantalizing so as to compel the user to click and watch. The more interesting items in the News Feed become, the more the users will be hooked.

In taking this step towards customized video viewing, Facebook is encroaching well into one of its biggest rivals, YouTube, according to Techcrunch. One of the biggest advantages Facebook has over YouTube is the very fact that it is a feed. While users visit the latter to get the latest news on things they already know about, or updates on videos they already watched before, people go to Facebook to learn news that the social media company is recommending to them. Like search engines like Google, Facebook uses an algorithm that allows it to identify which news bits are most interesting for each user.

This innovation is one step towards achieving an extremely personalized social media experience. Soon enough, Facebook just might be able to deliver the exact video each user needs or wants in any particular time, even those the users never thought they wanted to see. Facebook aims to make viewing a lot simpler, even when compared to the convenience that YouTube has accomplished today.

TagsVideo, YouTube