360-Degree Videos Coming to Facebook News Feeds

THE SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook has started showing 360-degree video in News Feed and has marked the launch with an immersive clip from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

On Wednesday, Facebook made an announcement regarding a new 360-degree video format that will allow users to enjoy videos from any angle. On mobile, users will be able to look around the scene by dragging their fingers on the screen or by simply turning their phones toward the direction they wanted to view. On a computer, they merely click and drag on the video with their cursor.

Facebook chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has repeatedly described virtual reality as the next big “computing platform” after mobile devices, and believes that it will one day become a part of daily life for billions of people.

While 360 video is finally available on Facebook, there is still likely going to be a lack of content on the platform until a little more time has passed. You can view 360 videos right now on the official Pages of Discovery, GoPro, VICE and more.

Facebook users on the Web or Android phones can now see awesome 360 videos created by individuals, media companies and organisations in Newsfeed.

Viewers can navigate an all-around video on a desktop by dragging the image around with a mouse. The social giant foresees expanding the feature to all user-shared video, although today capturing 360-degree video requires a specialized camera array. Facebook planned to get it onto hardware powered by Apple iOS software “in the coming months”. It’s just one step closer to the virtual reality future that Facebook is pushing for with its Oculus VR business.

Rumors that Facebook would be launching the new video feature popped up last week, though it was suggested then that the feature would be launched through a standalone app.

Facebook has been teasing its plans to produce 360-degree video for users for a while now.