Facebook Exec Comments on Recent Deal With Comcast

Last week, Facebook announced a deal with Comcast (CMCSA) to give aspiring movie makers on the popular social network the chance to showcase their work on Comcast. As part of the deal, Facebook will use Comcast's video-sharing Web site called Ziddio, and Comcast will sell advertising for the video inventory.

What are the details behind the deal and how will it affect Facebook's advertising relationship with Microsoft (MSFT)?

Read the interview I conducted with Owen Van Natta, Facebook's COO.

ME: Why didn't Facebook build its own video-uploading/sharing technology? Why partner with Comcast for that?
Owen: The video partnership was appealing for a number of reasons 1) multi-channel distribution 2) offer users a way to have their contact to show up on Comcast, which is available to 12 million consumers.

ME: Will Facebook own the videos or will Ziddio?
Owen: Not disclosing. The videos will be hosted on the Vindio platform, and available on Facebook/Vindio.

ME: Who will be selling the advertising?
Owen: We're working closely with Comcast. Our ad salesforce isn't huge. Comcast has a larger salesforce,.

ME: Can Comcast sell ads on your site since Facebook has a deal with Microsoft (MSFT)?
Owen: We haven't finalize all the advertising opportunities. We're focused on new sponsorship opportunities. We haven't finalized exactly what that is.

ME: How will the advertising revenue be split?
Owen: We haven't disclosed any economics.

ME: How long is the partnership?
Owen: "Facebook Diaries" will go on for 6 months. [Facebook Diaries is a TV show that'll be produced by R.J. Cutler, producer of "The War Room." The show will have 10 episodes.]

ME: How do you plan to promote this on Facebook and Comcast?
Owen: There's going to be a destination on Facebook that will be a sponsored group, where people will be able to navigate and watch the videos, share them with their friends and rate them. We'll promote it through other ways we alert people - within their news feeds, other promotional areas such as Next Step link. Comcast will be promoting it on Ziddio.

ME: When does the contest start and when do you expect the first show?
Owen: We expect it to launch in late March, and the first episode will premiere shortly afterwards. They'll be based on a series of contests [whereby] we'll put out a call for the type of videos Cutler is looking for based on various topics.

ME: What's the incentive for Facebook members?
Owen: The incentive is to be able to participate in these contests and have your contest be part of a professionally-produced segment on Facebook and Comcast on-Demand service.

ME: How many submissions do you expect to get after the 20-week period?
Owen: We haven't built a forecast for numbers, we haven't focused on goal number of videos.

ME: Facebook started offering sharing-of-video capabilities in October 2006. How many videos are streamed on Facebook?
Owen: It's not a stat that we've released.

ME: Update us on how many of the 16 million Facebook members are not in college or high school.
Owen: We don't break down those figures. Several thousand work networks of the 47,000 networks.