Kerry Flynn says, “Facebook is about to turn up the volume on its video competition with YouTube. Videos on the social network can soon include mid-roll advertisements, allowing publishers to finally start making money from their videos, Recode reported Monday. Unlike YouTube where ads run prior to the video and can be skippable after 5 seconds, ads within Facebook videos can be inserted 20 seconds into any video that lasts at least 90 seconds. The move to ad breaks comes as little surprise to publishers. This mid-roll ad system is the same format Facebook has tested with live videos.... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “To paraphrase J. Cole, Facebook messes up on its math one time; shame on Facebook. Facebook messes up on its math a second time; shame on those of us blindly trusting Facebook’s math. Facebook messes up on its math a third time; time to make a list of all the times Facebook messed up on its math. On three separate occasions since September, Facebook has disclosed more than a handful of errors related to its own measurements that brands, publishers and others use to evaluate the performance of their Facebook ad campaigns, Facebook-native videos, Facebook-only Instant... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Math is hard, even for Facebook. And it’s getting harder to trust Facebook’s math, even as the social network fine-tunes its calculations. For the third time since September, Facebook is disclosing new measurement errors. The two new errors affected the reaction counts Facebook reports on Pages’ Live videos, as well as the engagement figures Facebook reports for off-Facebook links; the latter link engagement metrics were recently used in investigations by BuzzFeed and The New York Times into fake news articles’ performance on Facebook. In addition to acknowledging... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Do no evil. Make the world more open and connected. These have been Google and Facebook’s respective tag lines or mantras, if you will; however their moral and ethical aspirations bump into an uncomfortable and often contradictory foe: the market. While Google has in recent years walked away from “do no evil,” which led to regular charges of hypocrisy, Facebook still actively promotes itself as an agent of positive change around the world. That image was dramatically upended by numerous reports that unchecked, fake news on Facebook may have helped swing the election... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “In last week’s stats roundup, I reported how more companies than ever are investing their budgets in Facebook dark posts. But wait just a moment – what exactly are dark posts? You might have heard of dark social or dark web – but this is something different. Let’s shine a light on the subject. Social posts for select eyes only A dark post is anything a brand might post on Facebook – such as a link, video, photo or status – that will only be seen by a specific or target demographic. Unlike a regular published post, a dark post does not show up on a brand’s... [...]

Reuters team says, “Facebook Inc. has quietly developed a censorship tool that could persuade China to allow the world’s biggest social media network to re-enter the world’s second largest economy after a seven-year ban, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Facebook developed the software, which suppresses posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographies, with the support of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, the newspaper said, citing unnamed current and former employees. Zuckerberg in March met China’s propaganda chief Liu Yunshan who said he... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Facebook is returning its Marketing Partners (née Preferred Marketing Developers) program to its roots as a roster of advertising and marketing technology providers and putting some agencies that had been part of the program at a further remove. Facebook plans to eliminate the “media buying” speciality from its Marketing Partners program that grants a Good Housekeeping-style seal of approval to various companies that help brands buy ads and manage their accounts on Facebook and Instagram, the company announced on Monday. The elimination of the media buying badge,... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “In a sort of course correction, Facebook made several announcements Wednesday pertaining to audience and ads measurement on the social network. The news includes several metrics corrections — though none likely to cause as much consternation as September’s revelation that Facebook had been overstating the “average duration of video viewed” due to a miscalculation — more third-party verification, a new blog to communicate ongoing metrics changes, and the formation of a new Measurement Council. “We want to reaffirm our commitment to the market and provide... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Facebook is making it easier than ever for brands to lure you into chatting with them. The social network rolled out a new type of ad on Tuesday that lets advertisers with or without Messenger bots solicit messages through sponsored News Feed posts. The posts look like any other ad on the site, but have a “send message” button in place of a link to an outside site. Another iteration of the format lets brands run ads within a particular open conversation on the Messenger platform in an attempt to reconnect with users with whom they’ve talked before. Facebook... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Today Facebook officially made it possible for marketers to turn their Messenger bots into ad bots. After testing sponsored messages since April 2016, Facebook Messenger is opening up the messaging app’s inaugural ad format to all brands who use Messenger’s developer tools to manage their Messenger conversations. Facebook Messenger’s sponsored messages are pretty straightforward and don’t seem to stray from the version it had been testing. The ads can only be shown to people who “have an open, existing conversation with” a brand, according to Facebook. There... [...]