Facebook Brings 360-Degree Video To The News Feed

Facebook has been teasing its plans to produce 360-degree video for users for a while now. YouTube, Facebook’s primary competitor when it comes to online video, debuted 360 videos earlier this year.

To shoot these videos, you’ll need a somewhat expensive 360 camera like a Bubblcam, which costs $800.

On Wednesday, Facebook introduced 360-degree videos to its newsfeed platform, letting users experience video by looking around in every direction.

The new service will allow you to pan videos by moving your phone around by using your device’s gyroscope.

A few publishers are already bringing 360 videos to News Feed for your enjoyment, such as Star Wars, GoPro, Discovery, and even LeBron James. “It’s the kind of thing that you run over to show someone else the moment you first see it”, wrote Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, in a post about the topic on Wednesday. Facebook worked with engineers in its Oculus division to bring the virtual reality-style feature to the main Facebook platform.

To get a feel for what viewing Facebook’s 3D videos on an Android phone is like, click this link.

The immersive new feature being added to News Feed was being rolled out to Web browser and mobile devices powered by Google-backed Android operating systems. That means for now we’re more likely to see bigger brands and publishers sharing these videos than average humans.

Martin Beck is Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, covering the latest news for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land.

Remember that one time that Facebook bought Oculus, maker of the Rift virtual reality headset? At some point in the not-too-distant future, 360 videos will let users virtually immerse themselves in various environments and events from a friend’s trip to the Grand Canyon to a live news broadcast from Iraq.