Facebook's Video Expansion Doesn't Pose a Threat, Yet: YouTube

YouTube has downplayed the threat of Facebook displacing its dominance of online video, saying both companies will be able to grow rapidly for years by cannibalising the television advertising market.

Robert Kyncl, head of content and business operations at YouTube, was quoted as saying by the Financial Times that the online video market was expanding so fast that "it will be a decade before we bump into each other".

He said Facebook's and other players' arrival shows that online video is "becoming mainstream", but it would not derail the YouTube juggernaut.

Facebook, which has 1.4 billion monthly active users, has been putting video ads into users' feeds for more than a year.

Recently, it muscled further into YouTube's territory with a trial to share advertising revenue with video creators who publish on the social network.

Facebook will match the revenue split offered by YouTube, giving content creators 55 percent of the proceeds of ads that run next to their videos.

Separately, Facebook on Thursday confirmed that it is dabbling in video ads and sharing revenue with content creators, in a move that would compete with Google-owned YouTube.

An advertising model being tested by the leading online social network is part of a "Suggested Videos" feature designed to recommend clips for people based on snippets they tune into in News Feed at Facebook.

"We're running a new suggested videos test, which helps people discover more videos similar to the ones they enjoy," a Facebook spokesperson said in an email reply to an AFP inquiry.

Written with agency inputs