Facebook’s ‘Watch Party’ feature to let group members watch videos together

Facebook has introduced a feature called ‘Watch Party’ that will let the members of a group watch videos and interact with each other at the same time. 

“In a Watch Party, members of a group can watch videos together in the same space at the same time – videos are chosen by the group admins and moderators and can be any public videos on Facebook (live or recorded),” said Fidji Simoi, Facebook’s Vice President of Product in a post late on Wednesday.

He said that with everyone watching, commenting and reacting to the same moments together, it creates a shared viewing experience for video that helps build a community. The social media giant is starting to roll out the feature with groups because “a billion people use Facebook groups every month to connect around their passions and hobbies and video is a huge part of this interaction.”

The executive also said that viewing the videos together on the platform will also create an engagement which is similar to the one which is created by Facebook Live. Today, live videos generate an average of six times as many interactions as regular videos. Facebook said it would learn from the experience and hope to expand ‘Watch Party’ in the future.

Last week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the platform has always been about personal connections and interactions in meaningful ways. “As we think about video on Facebook, we’re focused on creating experiences that bring people closer together and inspire human connection instead of passive consumption,” he had said, adding, “We are excited about what might be possible when we bring the best elements of Live that people love to more video experiences like Watch Parties.”