After YouTube, Facebook will allow subscribers to download videos for offline viewing.
A couple of months ago, rumors about Facebook’s plans to take on YouTube by bringing offline video support started floating. Now Facebook is all set to test the offline video download feature in India starting July 11. Initially, it is going to be available only to a ‘small group of people’.
Facebook has revealed its plans by sending an email to select media partners, Gadgets360 reports. According to the email, users will be able download videos to their Facebook app when online, and the same video can be watched later, online or offline. The downloaded video will be stored in the Facebook app itself, thus assuring publishers that users won’t be able to share with other applications.
“Publishers can opt out at the Page level, meaning that any video uploaded by that Page will not be available to download. Go to the Settings tab in your Page, [and] select Prohibit downloading to Facebook in the Content Distribution row,” the email says.
On BGR India’s Facebook Page, the option for ‘Prohibit downloading to Facebook’ is visible under Settings > Content Distribution. The tab also has a little question mark which explains how the offline video download feature will work and that users won’t be able to save it to a local device, rather will be restricted to the Facebook app.
Streaming a video burns the mobile data every time, but with offline videos, users can download it when connected to the Wi-Fi network and view it later, without connecting online. Facebook’s move is similar to YouTube’s offline video download. However, YouTube does have some restrictions. Once a video is downloaded, offline playback works for up to 48 hours, after which an internet connection is required to check if the video is still published. If the publisher has taken down the video, the user won’t be able to view it. However, it’s not clear if Facebook plans to implement same type of restrictions.
What remains to be seen is how soon Facebook can widely rollout the feature and how many publishers sign up for it. It could eventually help publishers increase user engagement, as it will allow users with poor connectivity to download videos and view it at their convenience.
Source: bgr.in
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