Facebook is now building upon the success of its 360-degree video roll-out with many new analytical and publishing tools. Now the social networking giant has added the ability to input a guided tour of 360-degree clips. Since September, around 250,000 360-degree clips have been uploaded to the social network.
How it works
This new addition basically allows the creators to direct viewers automatically to the best parts of action in the video. As a result, the person watching the video does not have to click and drag the screen to seek the best part of view. Already many prominent publishers have begun using the guide feature on their 360-degree content, including ABC News and GoPro.
If you want to use the guide, then while uploading the video, just select the option that states, “This video was recorded in 360 degree format.” After this, you will be able to use the new “360 Controls.” In the controls, you can select the “Enable Guide” box that allows you to add points of interest throughout your video.
It will be turned on by default for the viewers once they select the guide feature. The uploaded video will pan around automatically to the action spots selected during the editing process. By panning or swiping out of the scene, viewers can opt out of the guided view to manually explore other points of the 360-degree clip. If a user wants to return to the guide after navigating away, all they have to do is click the small compass indicator located at the top right of the video display.
Heatmap: another amazing feature from Facebook
Heatmap is another new feature that Facebook added which is directed at creators of the 360-degree video. Heatmap is an insights tool that assists users in discovering the parts of clip viewers find most entertaining or impressive. This new tool does this by creating a visual map of the creator’s video that displays its most interesting parts.
Facebook claims that it gets this information from the aggregate data of its view ports. Facebook’s view ports measure each time a viewer moves 30 degrees within the frame of a video. Currently, Heatmap is available only for the videos posted from May 1, and have reached more than 50,000 unique viewers. Users can access it via their video library under publishing tools.
“For publishers who opt to use Guide, the insights you glean from Heatmap may help inform how you select your points of interest in Guide,” said the partnerships lead at Facebook 360, Paul Beddoe-Stephens.
