This Week in Online Video: Making Mobile Moves

This week in online video: from pre-loading ads, to direct video messaging, premium platforms are racing to build the best experience for mobile users and advertisers.
Facebook Launches Canvas So Publishers Can Create “Instant” Ads
Facebook has officially rolled out its new ad offering: Canvas, which autoloads in the mobile app to streamline the user’s experience. Mobile sites can be slow to load — sometimes taking as long as ten seconds — but by displaying ads within the Facebook app itself with Canvas, marketers can retain users that might have grown tired of waiting and clicked away. Similar to Facebook’s Instant Articles program for publishers, Canvas is designed to be media-rich, and is priced at the same rate as Facebook’s regular newsfeed ad offering.

Facebook Potentially to Put Ads in Messenger
TechCrunch reports that Facebook will begin enabling ads in its Messenger app in Q2 2016. Businesses will be able to serve ads as messages to any consumers who have initiated conversations at any point in the past. This represents Facebook’s first overt monetization of the Messenger app, and potentially offers marketers an important new way to reach customers on the same platforms where they’re actively communicating with friends and family.
Instagram Continues Double-Digit Growth
According to a recent eMarketer forecast, more than a third of American mobile phone users are projected to be on Instagram this year. As Instagram growth continues to expand faster than social network usage in general, the platform will be increasingly useful for marketers trying to target mobile users — especially the hard-to-reach millennial segment.

Twitter now allows videos in Direct Messages
Following its recent 30-second preroll announcement, Twitter continues to invest in video with new support for video within direct message conversations. In Twitter’s mobile app, users will be able to record as well as send video within direct messages threads, while desktop users will be limited to sending video. This marks the latest rollout in Twitter’s expansion of key features, including a GIF search button and greater livestream integration — a feature that Twitter eyes as top priority for 2016.
Snapchat offering temporary, on-demand geofilters
Snapchat now allows for users to submit temporary geofilters for as little as $5. Snapchat doesn’t design the graphics, simply placing them on the service for a limited amount of time, while opening the doors for new monetization opportunities.
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