Gadgetory

one of the biggest trends on the web this year has been video all the big tech companies are trying to find ways to make their videos feel more immersive interactive and most importantly find ways to e to watch them longer and the next big front in video is video shot in 360 degrees camera manufacturers are starting to make rigs that can capture the whole world in 360 degrees and they're finally starting to be more places online where you can actually view them as of today one of those places is Facebook's newsfeed one of the things we're constantly working on is how do we improve the formats that are available in these foods for people to tell stories to their friends or for publishers who have really interesting content to share with the world and over time we think that the things that people want to share are getting richer and more immersive and so we started thinking about how do we do a really great mobile experience for 360 degree videos for people who are using Facebook who may not yet have a really cool VR device to check out the content and so to show you what this looks like if you're scrolling down through your newsfeed here you come across this really cool video that's coming out at launch from Star Wars and it tells you that it's a 360 degree video and you can actually move your phone around as if you're the director choosing what the angle should be for now though it seems like creating a 360 degree video is not something most people can do adjust what their phone totally so it you know takes either specialized hardware or specialized software so I think the people you'll see at launch creating this type of content or you know enthusiasts or people who really understand the space but over time I think it'll get easier and easier for people to do this so you'll see more and more cool content who's going to be showing off 360 degree videos to start yeah so there's a few so Star Wars is one of these were really excited about it launched we also have the Discovery Channel and Mythbusters is doing a really cool thing where you're underwater you can see sort of sharks coming at you we've got Vice is doing some reporting from Afghanistan which is a really interesting way to like actually feel like you're there LeBron James is doing a workout so you can check out his workout the other really exciting thing is because of anyone seeing with coming in over there over the weeks and months after does this feel like a step towards Facebook VR the way I might think about it is a nice stepping stone for creator so if I'm creating really really cool interesting VR content the nice thing about this is it's a way for lots and lots of people to check that content out whether or not they have a VR device yeah so you might imagine you know a few years from now lots and lots of people will have VR devices and be able to watch content like this on their VR device but force you know for a creator like Star Wars this is a great way for them to make content for the people who have the devices but also for everyone else to check out and one of the cool things is I think over time you can imagine there being more of this content and more of it available an oculus and starting to think through how to make the experience more seamless between newsfeed and oculus so the most interesting thing about having these videos in the newsfeed maybe what they tell us about where Facebook is going they built this product with the help of the oculus team oculus of course working on virtual reality and you can look at 360 degree video as a step down that road toward a world where Facebook is totally immersive where everywhere you look you're seeing things shared by your friends and by publishers that you care about now we have a long road to get there for starters you can only see these videos on an Android device or on the web but for a lot of people this is going to be the first time that they ever see video shot in 360 degrees and a lot of them are gonna like it