Facebook focus on India for its next billion users; to launch new architecture says VP of product

Facebook deeply cares about India as the company focuses on building for the next billion people coming online, a top Facebook executive said here on Thursday. “We are committed to learning about how people everywhere use our product, and making sure Facebook works for them. Connecting the next billion people on Facebook means understanding these differences and building better experiences to work on all connections, devices, and regions,” Adam Mosseri, vice president of product at Facebook, told reporters at the company’s India office here. In India, there are 155 million monthly active users, 77 million daily active users, 147 million Mobile monthly active users and 73 million Mobile daily active users. Facebook is available in 12 Indian languages and daily active users on Facebook in India had grown 22 per cent year over year, compared to a 17 per cent increase in daily active users on Facebook worldwide. “Over the past many months, we’ve continued to focus on efforts to improve News Feed for everyone regardless of device or network connection. We are now launching a new architecture so you can see less grey boxes, and more relevant stories quickly, regardless of your network connection,” Mosseri said. The new architecture of News Feed allows stories to be ranked on the client after being sent from the server. With 1.7 billion people globally and more than 150 million people in India using Facebook monthly, the social media platform provides an essential audience place for content creators. “We are building fast and immersive media experiences to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time. People around the world are using Facebook to connect with news publishers, video creators, celebrities and sports,” the executive noted. Globally, 100 million hours of video are now watched daily on Facebook. “We always want to learn from our partners and are committed to building products and business models hand-in-hand that deliver value to people and publishers on Facebook. 670 million people are connected to a News Publisher page on Facebook,” Mosseri added. By leveraging Facebook Live and Facebook 360 video, partners can deliver complementary programming for the second screen and expand their reach. “We’re committed to being transparent with publishers about the changes we make to News Feed – providing explanations of any ranking changes and sharing more about how we work,” Facebook added. IANS