Facebook recently announced Slideshow, a lightweight video ad format that will help the company monetize all the people it’s bringing online with Internet.org especially in the emerging world. The next logical step is for the social media company to monetize those people in emerging countries as aggressively as it has done in the USA with HD video ads. Since feature phones usually can’t display high-definition video, Facebook’s Slideshow alternative was created as an effort to get some of the benefits of video ads without the bandwidth. Advertisers can now use a self-serve platform to upload three to seven photos, and Facebook will create a slideshow of up to 15 seconds. Facebook resizes the ads differently depending on the device it is being served to. The company has tested the ads with companies including Coca-Cola and Netflix (although this is useless for emerging countries), and says they perform better than static photo ads.
Facebook often talks about Internet.org as a humanitarian mission, and data shows that internet access can be extremely helpful in helping people rise from poverty. But Facebook intends to benefit from the people it’s bringing online, too, and today we found out just a bit more about how they will do it.
