“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,” wrote David Fischer, a vice president of video and marketing partnerships for Facebook, in a post on Friday. Advertisers, however, buy Facebook video according to different metrics: either by “impressions,” which are measured as soon as a user sees a video in the news feed, or in 10-second views. “Average duration of video viewed” is neither a public metric nor does it determine how much advertisers pay for video placement. In July, Facebook reported blockbuster sales, up 59 percent from a year ago to $6.44 billion, and emphasized it was betting on video and video advertising for future growth. “If the data suggested that people were staying with video longer on the Facebook platform, that’s an indication people were starting to use the Facebook platform similar to a platform like YouTube,” she said in an interview.

Source: New York Times September 23, 2016 17:48 UTC