Your Facebook feed is about to get a lot louder.
Facebook on Tuesday announced a series of updates to the how videos appear in the News Feed. The most visible, or audible, update, is that videos will automatically play with sound when you scroll over them.
In the past, videos had to be clicked on to play sound. Now, Facebook says, the sound will fade in and out as you scroll past videos. Before you get too worked up though, know that the sound won’t play if your device is on silent. There’s also an option to turn the feature off and Facebook said it’s already tested the feature on users.
“As people watch more video on phones, they’ve come to expect sound when the volume on their device is turned on,” wrote Product Manager Dana Sittler and Engineering Manager Alex Li in a blog post. “After testing sound on in News Feed and hearing positive feedback, we’re slowly bringing it to more people.”
Videos are also going to start looking different on mobile. To mimic the shape of your phone, Facebook will now feature larger, vertical videos that easily expand to full screen. A redesigned progress bar will also make it easily to skip through the video.
On Android, these updates extend outside of the Facebook app, too. If you want to watch a video while scrolling through your messages, for example, you can now drag the video into any corner of your screen. It will continue playing even when you leave the app. For iOS users, this feature only works if you stay inside the app.
Facebook has been making a push into video, and is working on original content. During an earnings call earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is now paying creators for videos.
“I’ve said before that I see video as a megatrend, on the same order as mobile,” Zuckerberg said. “That’s why we’re going to keep putting video first across our family of apps and make it easier for people to capture and share video in new ways.”
The company has said it’s working on TV shows as well, and, Tuesday’s announcement of a Facebook video app for smart TV appears to confirm that. The app will allow you to watch videos by people you follow in addition to ones recommended based on your interests. You can also save videos to watch later, which suggests Facebook might be moving into longer content.
“We look forward to seeing how people use the app to enjoy Facebook videos in a new way,” Sittler and Li said in the post.
