Facebook Now Pins Active Videos While You Scroll Through Your News Feed On Desktop

A new Facebook change could help the social platform as it continues to build its video operation. Its “watch and scroll” feature, which pins active videos as a viewer scrolls through the rest of his or her news feed, is now available for desktop users after rolling out on mobile earlier this year.

Facebook won’t pin a video unless the viewer interacts with it in some way, whether by turning the sound on or by clicking an icon that reads “continue watching while you use Facebook.” Toggling on that option moves the video to the corner of the screen and opens up the rest of the page for additional scrolling. Additional videos will continue to autoplay without sound, and if the user turns up the volume on one of them, the pinned video will be paused. I was able to use this feature to watch multiple pieces of Lannister-related media at once, as pictured above.

The mobile version of watch and scroll has been around for three months now

. It is briefly demonstrated in a video released by Facebook back in February.

Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories

Subscribe

Adweek notes that watch and scroll will help Facebook create more ad inventory as it looks to jam more of its new “mid-rolls” into the content it distributes, and letting two videos play at once will certainly increase the number of ads the social platform is able to show at once. At the same time, its possible Facebook wants to foster more watch time among its users, especially since it has been maligned by its rivals for the weak quality of its views. YouTube, for example, said last October that its viewers like “to watch, not scroll.” “Well,” Facebook seems to be saying in response, “why not both?”

Share
Published by
Sam Gutelle

Recent Posts

With 500,000 sellers in the U.S. alone, TikTok touts the safety features of its Shop

Amidst a chaotic week at TikTok, the app took some time to acknowledge its growing community…

21 hours ago

Wesley Wang’s viral short film got 4.4 million views. A feature adaptation is in the works.

Nothing, Except Everything is getting a big-screen treatment. That's the name of a short film that…

22 hours ago

Creators on the Rise: Giulia Amato on faith, finding her niche, and getting up at 4 a.m.

Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where we find and profile breakout creators who are…

24 hours ago

Newsletter platform beehiiv prepares for expansion with $33 million Series B

A major player in the burgeoning newsletter industry has made a sizable addition to its…

2 days ago

Meta promotes original content on Instagram, launches bonus program on Threads

Meta has kicked off the week with a pair of announcements that should make its creator…

2 days ago

Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: MrBeast’s latest sponsored smash is fun for all ages

MrBeast continues to show us that he's in a league of his own as far as…

3 days ago