I find the news that came out this last week about Facebook to be one of the most professionally insulting things I’ve ever encountered. Have you ever heard the phrase “Pivot to video”? It is, and always was, a lie.

This isn’t about games, but it is about what I do, and Facebook screwed up really bad. Like, potentially history-altering bad. It is difficult to overstate how badly they screwed up.

Facebook is a free social media service; everyone knows that. So, how do they generate any revenue? It’s not as simple as serving you ads like on some ad banner. No, this is the internet, and analytics exist. They try to analyze what kind of user you are, and what you are interested in. Then, when someone wants to advertise to a specific person, Facebook has all the information needed to have a very precise and efficient marketing spend.

It doesn’t end there, though. It’s one thing to SAY that you’ve provided precise targeting, and it’s another entirely to prove it. How many people who saw the ad clicked on it? How many of those made a purchase? These are also critical questions to measure effective marketing.

NOW… what if you aren’t selling some product, but what you are posting IS your product? What if you are a news agency posting on Facebook? Well, you want to make sure you are attracting attention to your content appropriately. How many people are seeing your content, engaging with it, reading or watching the whole thing, and so forth.

The table is set, now for the failure

If you are going to tell people the results of the analytics, you have to be certain of what you’re measuring and your methods. People need to know what kind of content gets the most attention. In analytics, the definition of your data points is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. And here we come to Facebook’s amazing failure.

About a month ago, we found an error in the way we calculate one of the video metrics on our dashboard – average duration of video viewed. The metric should have reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by the total number of people who played the video. But it didn’t – it reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by only the number of “views” of a video (that is, when the video was watched for three or more seconds).

They used the wrong number to measure. They chose a number that removed all low engagement users. If you think that this shouldn’t be impactful, I should point out that engagements of under 3 seconds probably includes auto plays, scrolling past, quick starts and stops, or accidental plays. The idea of a vast majority of engagements being so brief also has precedent. Google+ admitted that “The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90% of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”

What did this do? It made video look MUCH more attractive and effective than it actually was. This is what drove the “Pivot to Video” fallacy. News and media agencies felt that to stay competitive they had to fire experienced writers and hire video editors. These videos then didn’t actually perform well, because they never did. In essence, they killed what they were good at and poured money into nothing. This contributed to a brain drain in the news industry.

Righteous Indignation

No, not Bucky O’Hare’s ship. The real one.

Verifying analytics, ensuring definitions are understood, understanding the validity of the numbers coming out of analysis, this stuff is a part of what I do. The fact that Facebook apparently just ignored this? Facebook! One of the biggest internet companies in the world! Facebook couldn’t spend a few dollars to hire someone to just go over this to make sure they weren’t lying to people… And the impact that this has had all over the world…  “gagh.”

At least I’m not alone in my righteous indignation.

This story is insane. How many hundreds of journos were sacked, and newsrooms restrategized to 'pivot to video'? Based on Facebook data which they allegedly overestimated by up to 900% – and failed to inform advertisers. Or anyone https://t.co/bETalGwQYj

— 🎃 Ghoulia Macfarlane 👻 (@juliamacfarlane) October 17, 2018

A “No PR” strategy by Facebook has resulted in gas on flames of every journalist impacted over the past two years. https://t.co/k8xUbJh2IF

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) October 18, 2018

I really don’t mind saying a million times that Facebook’s corrupt ad practices pushed journalism organizations in a “pivot to video” that result in hundreds, if not thousands, of layoffs and wasted resources chasing 3-second video views. https://t.co/FqMeMgINmB

— Frighty N. Gore (@moorehn) October 16, 2018

But consider this… haven’t heard much about it? Maybe it’s because Facebook’s negligence kneecapped news media… because they didn’t do my job…

AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Kynetyk is a veteran of the games industry.  Behind the Line is to help improve understanding of what goes on in the game development process and the business behind it.  From “What’s taking this game so long to release”, to “why are there bugs”, to “Why is this free to play” or anything else, if there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please write in to kynetyk@enthusiacs.com or follow on twitter @kynetykknows