Increasing interest in virtual reality is bringing 360-degree videos into play. YouTube recently announced that it’s going to support 360-degree videos so viewers will be able to experience the entire surroundings in a video instead of just one direction where the camera is pointed at. Facebook is jumping on this bandwagon as well. The social network confirmed today that 360-degree videos will soon be supported in the News Feed.
Anybody who uses Facebook knows what the News Feed is. It’s where all the action is. You get updates from your friends, pages you’ve liked, groups you’ve joined and much more. It’s the hub of all activity on your network.
Facebook confirmed during its F8 conference today that 360-degree videos are coming to the News Feed. It also confirmed that Oculus will support them as well. Oculus is a company working on virtual reality products. It’s owned by Facebook.
The social network is actually calling them “spherical videos,” the viewer will be able to experience videos from multiple angles, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared such a video of his company’s headquarters during the announcement today.
Facebook is also telling third-party publishers that they too can create spherical videos which will then work on Oculus’s products and in the News Feed. The social network didn’t say precisely when 360-degree videos will arrive in your News Feed.
It also didn’t confirm whether any and all Facebook users will be able to upload 360-degree videos, which need to be shot with specialized hardware, or whether Facebook plans on keeping this closed to third-party partners initially.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook and YouTube. Source: wired