Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Facebook Acquires QuickFire Networks to Better Support Video

Facebook is buying new tech to support all the videos on its platform.

Bacho / Shutterstock

Facebook is proving once again that it isn’t messing around when it comes to video.

The company announced the acquisition of QuickFire Networks on Thursday, a video startup with technology that aims to support high-quality video files without using a ton of bandwidth. In other words: Facebook needs technology to ensure the video quality on its social network isn’t going to decrease as more and more people watch and share video content; QuickFire should be able to help.

News of the acquisition comes just one day after Facebook released new data about the popularity of video on the platform. Users watch more than one billion video clips on Facebook each day, and more than half of the daily U.S. Facebook users are watching at least one video per day. In the past year, video posts per user are up 75 percent around the world.

Part of that is due to Facebook’s strategy to promote video, and the introduction of autoplay video. When you upload a video directly to Facebook, it autoplays in News Feed. And a tweak to the algorithm means that the more video you watch, the more video Facebook will show you (it’s easy to watch lots of video when it’s playing automatically).

The QuickFire technology may also help Facebook surface high-quality video to users in emerging markets where Wi-Fi and cellular data access are hard to come by. Creating a better experience in those markets (think South America and Africa) should help boost user numbers as more people join the service despite limited connectivity.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to share terms of the deal, but select employees from QuickFire will join Facebook at the company’s Seattle and Menlo Park, Calif., offices.

The QuickFire acquisition is Facebook’s second this week. On Monday, Facebook acquired Wit.ai, a Palo Alto-based voice recognition startup.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Politics
OpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agendaOpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agenda
Politics

The AI company released a set of highly progressive policy ideas. There’s just one small problem.

By Eric Levitz
Future Perfect
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
Future Perfect

Protecting astronauts in space — and maybe even Mars — will help transform health on Earth.

By Shayna Korol
Podcasts
The importance of space toilets, explainedThe importance of space toilets, explained
Podcast
Podcasts

Houston, we have a plumbing problem.

By Peter Balonon-Rosen and Sean Rameswaram
Technology
What happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputerWhat happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputer
Technology

How they’re using AI at the lab that created the atom bomb.

By Joshua Keating
Future Perfect
Humanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious missionHumanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious mission
Future Perfect

Space barons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don’t seem religious. But their quest to colonize outer space is.

By Sigal Samuel