Facebook's video platform has become a huge source of traffic for the social network but is currently making no revenues from its four billion streams per day.

In an earnings call question and answer, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO Dave Wehner all dodged the question, claiming video revenue isn't a short term goal for Facebook.

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Even though Facebook doesn't appear to be rushing into video advertising, it's clear something is coming soon. It's been in meetings with media companies for video ads but for the most part, these will be sponsored adverts and not ads on top of regular videos.

Content monetization is a key focus for Google when it comes to YouTube, offering a split revenue option for content creators. Facebook may look towards something like this and may set-up rules for split revenue options to be accepted.

These might include things like how long the video is, what topic the video covers and owning a page on Facebook. Third-party content cannot be monetized similar to YouTube's policy, meaning Facebook will have to set up a DMCA and copyright claim system to make sure content isn't illegally posted.

All of this is coming in the next few years although when exactly is still unknown. Facebook desperately needs to make video more than just stats considering how lucrative video ads are compared to normal banner ads.

The issue for Facebook videos currently is a lot of content is rehosted or reshared by more popular pages or people, thus leading to a knock on viral effect that isn't common on YouTube's own platform without outsider views.

Having this simple way to share and grow content is an easy way for Facebook to become a better place to share videos but unless Facebook starts structuring its platform to support shared revenue pages and profiles, it will be hard to convince content creators to abandon YouTube for Facebook.

That said, Facebook has more users than YouTube and much more mobile usage, with 800 million mobile users. Across almost all countries, Facebook is popular with odd exceptions like China (where it's banned), Russia (where other social networks are available) and Iran (where it is also banned), meaning content is capable of reaching a global audience instantly.

Tagsadverts, Video, mobile, News Feed