Facebook pushed hard into video after F8 but has no clear way to pay partners, making it risky for news sites to publish there instead of their own platforms. Zynga learned this lesson when Facebook abandoned third-party developers. Now Facebook's betting on Riff to compete with Snapchat, but the strategy feels scattered.
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Lots of talk about Facebook video last week at their F8 conference, and it does seem to be driving a lot of views. But without clear details on how partners can make money, I just don't know how they're going to compete with YouTube. And what about that idea that news organizations should just bypass their sites and post directly to Facebook? Incredible hubris. Facebook hasn't been the best partner over the years for third-party companies. I mean, witness Zynga. They built a great apps business on Facebook until Facebook decided that apps just weren't strategic. Sorry, Zynga. And now there's Riff, Facebook's newest attempt to beat Snapchat with a collaborative video platform. Now, it's interesting, although there are only so many videos I can see of other people's shoes before it gets old. Now, I'll be playing with Riff a little bit, and if there's any there there, I'll let you know. From the outside, it looks like Facebook really, really, really, really, really wants to own video. But judging on their moves and their lack of communication, they come across as an organization that just lacks a strategy beyond that Neanderthalic "video good" grunt. Now, if they had a strategy, then you could decide to join them or not. But all this flailing around in the dark is getting old.
