Facebook says that currently, a year after its global launch, more than 720 million people watch Watch videos monthly and around 140 million people watch them daily. Facebook has packaged its video metrics in, um, clever ways before, so I asked for more specifics. Basically, those monthly and daily numbers account for people who have visited the Watch tab or app and have spent at least one minute there. They might not actually be watching Watch but searching for something to Watch on watch. I mean, watch on Watch.

But this isn’t a story about Facebook Watch’s engagement numbers (murky), its long-term strategy for original video (unclear), or its minimum requirements for ads (creators need to have more than 10,000 Facebook followers and have generated more than 30,000 one-minute views on their videos). It’s not even really about content moderation, a huge and thorny issue for Facebook. (Facebook says its original programming pages are moderated by human beings who are intimate with the video content or show.)

This is about the act of watching Watch. It’s about diverting your eyes from Netflix or Hulu or YouTube or Twitter or Amazon, and instead giving your full attention, that hot but finite commodity, back to Facebook. Not only your attention but your emotions too.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.wired.com