True virtual reality videos are still pretty rare, mainly due to the fact that no major virtual reality headset has actually been released yet, but 360-degree videos have been getting pretty popular this year. The may not be true virtual reality, but they’re close enough, not to mention they’re pretty easy to make and don’t required specialized hardware to view, which is why companies like YouTube have been so quick to support 360-degree video playback. Not wanting to be left out, Facebook recently added support for 360-degree video playback to the New Feed, and has started encouraging users to upload such videos on Facebook.
Though they’re not full virtual reality, 360-degree videos are at the vanguard of the VR revolution: They give a taste of what the technology can do, they’re relatively easy to make, and can be viewed in Web browsers and on smartphones without the need for an expensive headset. YouTube has a channel dedicated to these clips and now Facebook is joining the party (a move Mark Zuckerberg promised back in March at F8). From today, these 360-degree videos are rolling out into the News Feed. The format is exactly what it sounds like: As a 360 movie plays, you can rotate your point-of-view to peer in any direction, whether that’s by moving your head inside a Samsung Gear VR headset or clicking and dragging in a Web browser. On a smartphone, you swipe on screen or physically move the device, so holding it above your head shows the view above. As VR aficionados will want to note, these videos differ from “full” virtual reality in a couple of key ways. There’s no depth perception (you feel like you’re in a video sphere rather than an actual world) and you can’t control the action or the position of the camera. Still, it’s a gentle introduction to the world of VR, and much more straightforward for both content creators and publishers.
