Facebook May Be Focusing On 'Half-Baked' Marketplace Instead Of Video

More than six months after Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) product manager Fidji Simo announced that the company was creating a dedicated video tab for its mobile app, the new feature is still nowhere to be seen. In a note, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield discussed his opinion of what’s going on with the video tab delay.

According to Greenfield, the rollout of Facebook’s new marketplace ahead of the video tab caught investors offguard.

“The marketplace rollout is particularly surprising as the product looks less than half-baked, with poorly targeted products that offer little value/relevance to consumers, not to mention a marketplace/commerce push was certainly not the direction investors had been expecting to come out of F8,” he explains.

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After speaking with industry insiders, Greenfield believes Facebook may be putting off the video tab until it can figure out a way to monetize video as effectively as it has monetized its newsfeed.

“While significantly increased time spent on Facebook would appear to be a very good problem for Facebook to have, we sense Facebook is struggling with how to monetize video within a dedicated tab at levels at/above where it monetizes today in newsfeed,” Greenfield hypothesizes.

Greenfield suggests that one solution to Facebook’s video tab monetization issues could be to simply maintain the status quo and abandon the plans for a dedicated video tab. Of course, that strategy would likely mean that Facebook has given up on capturing a large portion of TV ad dollars that will be up for grabs in coming years.

BTIG maintains a Neutral rating on Facebook’s stock.