Facebook Inc (FB): Is The Press Event This Week Going Straight to Video?

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) came out of the blue last week and sent some invitations for a press event to be held Thursday of this week. The invite was sent through snail mail, not through e-mail or some other modern way, as if to provide a hint for something that is sort of a throwback to an earlier time. The invite was announcing a “big idea,” a new product, that Facebook was going to reveal this week.

As Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) had done a good job of hiding what it has been working on, and blindsided many with this invitation – there were no rumors that such an event was coming – now there is some speculation about what this event could be about. The latest rumor involves its photo-sharing app, Instagram. While there is no confirmation of this, because of Facebook’s so-far-airtight lips regarding any hints, the talk on the street is that Facebook could be revealing a Vine-inspired video-sharing application attached to Instagram.

For those who have not been in the know lately, Vine is a video-sharing social app affiliated with Twitter, where users can create and share six-second video clips. There was talk a couple weeks ago about Instagram having this video-creation ability coming, but there was no indication at the time that it was due for an imminent reveal – only that the system was being beta-tested internally. The Instagram video clips, we were told, would be no more than 10 seconds long.

However, there has been much talk about Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) adding video to its advertising on its social platform, adding video to Instagram could enhance that push for more interactive advertising. Instagram is only about one-tenth the size of Facebook in terms of users, so this may not be meant for immediate monetization, but if this video-sharing opportunity is the new product that will be revealed this week, it could signal a change in the game for Facebook as it tries to step up its advertising to compete with Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and perhaps re-engage users on Facebook by allowing more video sharing and video creation through its native platform.

What are your thoughts? Does this make sense as the new product that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) will reveal this week, or do you think it’s something completely different than an “upgrade” to Instagram? Give us your feedback in the comments section below.

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