Facebook inflated video metrics

Facebook Inc.’s rapid growth has been tightly linked to convincing advertisers that people are watching more videos on its social network.

Now the company is disclosing it has been giving marketers an inflated number for the average time being spent viewing online clips.

The company, owner of the world’s largest social network, boosted the figure by only counting a video as “viewed” if it had been seen for more than 3 seconds. Not included in the calculation was when a person didn’t watch — or watched for less than 3 seconds. Facebook said it was taking steps to fix the problem and that advertisers weren’t overcharged.

“As soon as we discovered the discrepancy, we fixed it,” David Fischer, Facebook’s vice-president of business and marketing partnerships, said yesterday. “We informed our partners and made sure to put a notice in the product itself so that anyone who went into their dashboard could understand our error.”

After reviewing other metrics, Facebook concluded that the error had no impact on video statistics the company has shared in the past, according to a statement. The disclosure may hurt Facebook’s effort to get marketers to augment television campaigns, which carry the largest budgets in advertising, with clips on its social network.

— Washington Post