Facebook rolls out 360-degree videos to the public with Vice, Star Wars

Facebook has finally unveiled its 360-degree videos to the public after teasing them for months.
The social network showed off panoramic videos from Star Wars, Vice, NBC’s Saturday Night Live, LeBron James and GoPro today. Without the need for a clunky piece of head gear, the virtual reality videos work by users dragging around their cursors while it plays, letting them “explore” the scene.
“To create 360 videos, a special set of cameras is used to record all 360 degrees of a scene simultaneously,” explains Facebook’s video engineering director Maher Saba in a blog post.
The videos were created using Oculus’ technology, a virtual reality company the company acquired last year. So far, the videos only work on the on Google Chrome (not Safari) and on Android devices, but not on iOS just yet.
Before expanding to other brands and users, Facebook users can navigate around SNL’s historic 8H studio during its 40th anniversary special, virtually swim with the sharks on Discovery’s page or take a peek of war-torn Afghanistan on Vice. The video that got the most excitement was from Star Wars, letting people see a scene from the upcoming film.
“There’s also a whole world of video creators and storytellers who are at the cutting edge of exploring this medium, and over the coming days they too will be able to upload their 360 videos to Facebook,” Saba wrote, hinting that more will be appearing on people’s News Feeds soon.
Facebook announced the new format in June at Cannes Lions. And earlier this month, Gatorade and Michael Kors were among the first brands to use the 360-degree experience to test out ads. While they haven’t yet launched, it’s only a matter of time at this point.
Photos via Facebook.
More in Media

WTF is sell-side decisioning?
With programmatic processes speeding up, publishers and SSPs can do more merchandising of impressions before they are put up for auction through sell-side decisioning tactics.

Media Briefing: Reddit becomes a more noticeable source of publisher traffic
As generative AI eats into search traffic, publishers are increasingly turning to platforms like Reddit to drive audiences to their sites.

Epic aims to boost originality in Fortnite’s creator ecosystem
Creators believe new Fortnite updates, including a moderation “similarity score,” will help fix the platform’s persistent copycat issues.