Do you like reading? Me too. It’s great. Words! Sentences! Exclamation points! Just don’t expect to do too much reading on Facebook in the near future. Facebook’s vice-president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Nicola Mendelsohn, told the audience at a Fortune conference in London on Tuesday that we can expect the platform to “be probably all video” in five years.
“I just think if we look already, we’re seeing a year-on-year decline on text,” Mendelsohn said. “We’re seeing a massive increase … on both pictures and video. If I was having a bet [about Facebook five years from now], I would say: video, video, video.” Which sounds about right since Facebook users are already consuming 100 million hours of video on mobile devices alone every day, Nieman Labs reports. It makes sense given Facebook’s recent emphasis on all things video, which includes monetization. (You might have noticed anytime someone you follow goes live on Facebook you get a notification and the video is at the top of your timeline. There’s a reason for that.)
Mendelsohn also noted that Facebook Live videos attract ten times more comments than their non-live (Facebook Dead doesn’t have a great ring to it) counterparts, Fortune reports. Which is good news for Chewbacca mom and bad news for anybody who wanted to keep their timeline exactly as it is right now: a hotbed for friends from high school sharing charmingly offensive “news” stories from Huzlers.
