Tied to its increased focus on video, Facebook confirmed today that it will begin testing pre-roll ads in spots where users “proactively” seek out content, such as its new Watch offering.

RELATED: Facebook Unveils ‘Watch’ Platform

“While pre-roll ads don’t’ work well in News Feed, we think they will work well in Watch because it’s a place where people visit and come back to with the intention to watch videos.” Maria Angelidou-Smith, product management director, and Abhishek Bapna, product manager, at Facebook explained in this blog post.

They said the effort will start with six-second pre-rolls as Facebook works to understand what “works best for different types of shows across a range of audiences.”

This monetization-focused move comes as video becomes a core focus for Facebook and as mobile continue to be a main ad revenue driver. In Q3, Facebook mobile ad revenues, at $8.9 billion, were 88% of all ad revenue for the period, up from 84% of ad revenue in Q3 2016.

RELATED: Facebook Willing to Experiment with Video

The coming pre-roll ad test was just one of a set of updates from Facebook with respect to video.

It’s also updating the News Feed ranking to improve distribution of videos that users actively want to watch, focusing, for example, on those that have strong repeat viewership.

Facebook is also tweaking its guidelines for ad breaks and providing new metrics for publishers and creators to gauge ad performance.

Starting next month, Facebook will also focus the expansion of ad breaks on shows, with eligibility shifting to videos and episodes that are at least three minutes long. Previously, ad break-eligible videos were a minimum of 90 seconds.

“Our consumer research showed that moving from 90 second to three minute videos with Ad Breaks improved overall satisfaction,” the Facebook execs noted.

Comcast is shutting down Plaxo, the social networking company it acquired in 2008.

“We’re saying goodbye to Plaxo,” a notice on the Plaxo web site, first spotted by Variety, explains. “After 15 years of helping users enrich their address books, we will be shutting down the Plaxo service at the end of the day on December 31, 2017.”

With the shutdown imminent, Plaxo noted that it is no longer allowing users to create new accounts, and that it will begin purging user date on Jan. 1, 2018.

“While it’s sad to say goodbye to Plaxo, we’re eager to put more focus into our expanding core products within the xFinity family,” Plaxo noted in this post from the company’s customer service team.

Plaxo also provided a walk-through on how existing users can export their address book data.

RELATED: Comcast Looks to Mix Web, TV with Plaxo Purchase

A specific reason for the shutdown was not posted, though Plaxo has been thoroughly upstaged by several other social networking services over the past decade. When Comcast acquired Plaxo, it claimed to have about 50 million registered accounts.

At the time, Comcast was using Plaxo as its universal address book for a communications dashboard service called SmartZone, and used Plaxo to host address book accounts for Comcast web mail users. There were also ambitions to use Plaxo as a platform to share and post photos that would be accessible on mobile devices and TVs.

RELATED: Comcast to Tack Plaxo to TV

Offering a new spin on the virtual MVPD, Philo has pushed ahead with the anticipated, national launch of an entertainment-focused, sports-free OTT TV service that features channels from programmers that include A+E Networks, AMC, Discovery Communications, Scripps Networks Interactive and Viacom.

RELATED: Discovery to Buy Scripps Networks for $14.6 billion

Philo’s service, which will weave in a raft of social features in early 2018, starts at $16 for a lineup of more than 35 channels and an add-on package that costs an additional $4 per month for an additional nine channels (Philo’s full channel lineup is listed further below).

Philo allows up to three simultaneous streams per account, and the ability for users to set up individual profiles.

The company expects that consumers who want access to major local broadcast TV feeds will use other means, such as over-the-air TV antennas, and complement the service with Netflix and other OTT options.

“That gives you a lot of options to create TV package that makes sense for you,” Andrew McCollum, Philo’s CEO, said.

Philo’s service also includes a cloud DVR that stores unlimited shows and movies for up to 30 days, along with a VOD library and a Lookback component provides access to shows that have aired within the past three days. In addition to showing what’s on now and in the future, Philo’s guide will also let users go back to see what aired within the past few hours.  

Philo’s OTT service is initially supported on web browsers, Roku players, iOS devices, and via Chrome on Android devices. It expects to add more TV-connected platforms as well as a dedicated app for Android.

Focused on Being Friction-Free

Philo, which is offering one-week free trials of its new service, is also looking to take all the friction out of service sign ups by simplifying that process.

Consumers who want to join only need to supply their mobile phone number. In exchange, Philo will text them a code they can input to start using the product right away without requiring them to provide a billing address or credit card number.

The new direct-to-consumer OTT TV service expands Philo’s business, which previously had been centered on the delivery of live TV, VOD and cloud DVR services to college students in partnership with several universities, including Auburn, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, and the University of Alabama. Philo expects to be teamed up with more than 75 schools by the end of the year.

RELATED: Philo Tunes in More Than 40 Universities

The emergence of Philo’s sports-free skinny TV bundle has been hinted at for months by programming execs such as Viacom CEO Bob Bakish and Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

RELATED: Zaslav: Sports-Free Skinny Bundles Will Come

Though Philo’s approach with the skinny bundle appears to be targeting a subsection of consumers who don’t watch (or don’t want to pay) for live sports, it will face off with traditional pay TV providers and a growing array of virtual MVPDs that include Sling TV, PS Vue, YouTube TV, Hulu and fuboTV, which has developed a package that uses sports programming as its centerpiece.

RELATED: Sports-Free Streaming Bundle Closer to Launch

OTT Rights Opening Up

McCollum noted that Philo (a name inspired by TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, and a company formerly known as Tivli) originally set out about six years ago to improve the TV experience on college campuses, but noted that a national OTT version of the service wasn’t possible at the time because it was difficult then to acquire the streaming rights. That’s all changed as content owners warmed up to the idea amid a shift in the pay TV market that includes a growing cord-cutting trend.

He said Philo and its partners realized there’s an opportunity to create an entertainment-focused package at an affordable price that cuts out sports networks.

Additionally, Philo’s agreements with programmers is more “open” and flexible with respect to data, he said, noting that Philo will be sharing that information with those partners in a way that, they hope, will provide more guidance on shows and other programming that resonate with consumers that fall into Philo’s category.

That data-driven model will also help to power another tenet of Philo’s approach.

Social Features Coming in Early 2018

“We want to build first social television product,” explained McCollum, an exec who was on the founding team at Facebook.

TV, he said, is one of the most social mediums in existence, but most of those products don’t emphasize it in terms of how it’s integrated into the social media fabric.

Early next year, Philo will add opt-in features that focus on social interaction between subscribers that, for example, will allow them to share what they are watching and discover what shows are popular with other people in their social circle. The system will also let subs control what TV viewing is visible to others who are in their social networks.

“The social network is the most powerful recommendation engine in existence,” McCollum said.

To facilitate conversations about a show, Philo will also provide a way for people in their social network to synchronize viewing.

Younger age groups, he added, “are used to sharing everything in their life on Snapchat and Instagram.”

McCollum said Philo intends to focus some of its efforts on consumers who are just getting out of college, adding that 90%-plus of Philo’s subs on college campuses said they’d want to keep the service after they left school.

McCollum said Philo is getting access to ad avails that’s typical of other MVPDs.

Philo has raised about $51 million, with backers that include A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Discovery, Scripps and Viacom, New Enterprise Associates, Rho Ventures, XFund, HBO, CBC New Media Group, and Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments.

The San Francisco-based company has about 35 employees.

Philo’s Starting Lineup

A&E

AMC

Animal Planet

AXS TV

BBC America

BBC World News

BET

Cheddar

CMT

Comedy Central

Discovery Channel

DIY

Food Network

FYI

HGTV

History

IFC

ID

Lifetime

Lifetime Movie Network

MTV

MTV2

Nickelodeon

Nick Jr.

OWN

Science

Spike

Sundance Channel

TeenNick

TLC

Travel Channel

TV Land

Velocity

VH1

Viceland

We TV

$4 Add-On Package:

American Heroes Channel

BET Her

Cooking Channel

Destination America

Discovery Family

Discovery Life

Logo

MTV Live

Nicktoons

Looking to strengthen the ties between social networks and live TV, Metrological is introducing a new service that ties a Twitter experience to the set-top box and the big screen. 

Metrological, a Netherlands-based company that specializes in TV apps, said the cloud-powered “Watch with Twitter” offering will deliver a tight integration of both sides.

“The core goal for us is to integrate the TV and app experience,” Robert Cloudt, head of content management and strategy at Metrological, said, noting that his company is using Twitter APIs to enable a “lean back” TV-focused capability.

Metrological said its approach is managed by a browser-based implementation of the Metrological Application Platform.

Among the features, he said the implementation will show trending tweets, including tweets with embedded video, alongside the show being watched. Metrological’s Twitter tie-in will also enable the viewer to pull up a carousel view of trending programs that are based on Twitter data, Cloudt explained.

He said Metrological has deployment commitments for Watch with Twitter for next year, but couldn’t be more specific than to say that rollouts are being targeted for next year. Comcast, Liberty Global and Ooredoo, a telecom company based in Qatar, are among Metrological’s announced partners.

In that group, Comcast already offers a trending guide view and a trending now icon that is native to its X1 platform/user interface based on Twitter chatter. In February, Liberty Global announced a “Watch with Twitter” app for its Horizon TV platform.

RELATED: Metrological Scores with Comcast and Liberty Global

And there are other recent examples. At last month’s Apple product event, Twitter showed an app for the Apple TV that puts the Twitter feed/conversation alongside the live feed of a live NFL game being streamed on Twitter that tied in tweets, stats, and polls, and real-time “reactions” that are associated with the matchup.

“We are delighted to be working with Metrological on this integration that will allow operators to bring Tweets together with broadcast TV live on the set-top box,” Brenda O’Connell, director of business development for Twitter in EMEA, said in a statement. “This app gives people the best of both worlds - the ability to sit back and watch TV, while incorporating the immediacy of Twitter. Viewers will be able to instantly see for themselves what all the buzz is around a particular piece of content.”

Periscope, the Twitter-owned mobile live streaming platform, announced Tuesday that it has integrated its platform directly into the popular social network, providing a way for users to watch and share Periscope broadcasts without leaving the Twitter app.

Under the previous method, when a Periscope broadcast is shared on Twitter, users had to tap tap the link to open the Periscope app. Those links are being replaced by the broadcast itself, “autoplaying right within the Tweet,” Periscope noted.  “And when you tap the video, it goes full-screen and shows Periscope comments and hearts from other viewers. You don’t need the Periscope app or even a Periscope account.”

The hope is that Periscope users can use the integration to build larger Twitter audiences.

The integration is being rolled out first on Twitter “over the next few days.”  Periscope has not announced when it will extend that to Android and Web browsers, but said those platforms are  on its to-do list.

Periscope said it has enabled 100 million broadcasts since launching the app in May.

Several programmers have been using Periscope to heighten their engagement with viewers.