**Facebook has announced that they will begin testing video and Live stream ads.**

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Video ads on platforms such as YouTube are already generating high revenues, but social networks have yet to take advantage of the high revenue opportunity in video ads until now. Facebook has announced that they are "running a small test where a group of publishers have the option to insert a short ad break in their Facebook Live videos."

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The ads will appear after a 5-minute video and will last no more than 15 seconds. Facebook implied that during the testing, the ads used will be taken from other video campaigns, but also that it's likely that advertisers will be able to create customized ads if the testing and ad response is successful.

Numerous reports not only suggest that publishers will be able to control the category of ads that will be showed during the videos and Live stream, but also that they will be able to switch off ads if the video and Live stream are not appropriately themed to have an ad.

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This will be a great source of revenue for publishers because they will be able to get some revenue based on how Facebook structures the video ad platform. However, during the test period, publishers will not get a part of the revenue generated.

Facebook has undergone a shift in favor of video in the last few years and this shift has brought on a lot of revenue for Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, and CEO of Facebook has expressed his pleasure over the way video has worked for the company.

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"We're particularly pleased with our progress in video as we move towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services," says Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook is not the only company that is focusing on live streams and video. Other tech giants such as Twitter have also expressed interest in live streams. Recently Twitter entered into a partnership for broadcasting live video from NHL, NFL and NBA games.

As an online marketer, I'm excited about the possibility of a new Facebook ad platform but it still remains to be seen how quickly Facebook opens up in-video ads to the public after the testing phase completes.