Facebook Rumored to Roll Out Video Ads in Users’ Feeds

Bloomberg reports that Facebook "plans to sell TV-style commercials on its site for as much as $2.5 million a day, two people familiar with the matter said."

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Bloomberg reports that Facebook “plans to sell TV-style commercials on its site for as much as $2.5 million a day, two people familiar with the matter said.”

There’s no firm date on when something like this would debut, but Bloomberg’s sources apparently indicated that the initiative has already been delayed twice because Mark Zuckerberg intended “to make sure Facebook’s user experience wouldn’t be tainted by the ads.”

Not tainting the experience might be easier said than done. Although Bloomberg’s article doesn’t use the word “auto-play” in any sense, this quip is worth a closer look:

While the social network already allows advertisers to upload videos to their Facebook page and then broadcast them into a user’s news feed, the new service would let marketers buy their way directly into a person’s feed with a 15-second pitch, according to the people.

It’ll be interesting to see what “buy their way directly into a person’s feed” means if this comes to fruition. Auto-playing ads in the desktop instance of Facebook could get annoying quickly; auto-playing ads on mobile devices would be unthinkable given people’s finite data buckets. Bloomberg also reports that “Facebook members won’t see a spot more than three times in a given day, the people said.”

This is still in the rumor phase for now, so take the news with a grain of salt.

Facebook Said to Plan to Sell TV-Style Ads for $2.5M Each [Bloomberg]