Facebook now lets you comment with a video

Inside Facebook's plan to be more human
Inside Facebook's plan to be more human

Words don't quite cut it? Don't panic. You can now upload a video to comment on your friends' Facebook posts.

Facebook (FB) launched the new feature Friday, part of a strategy to get people watching more video on its platforms.

It's competing with Snapchat, Periscope and others in an increasingly crowded online video market.

They are all betting on video to grow their user numbers. A forecast from Cisco Visual Networking Index published last week said video traffic would make up 82% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2020, up from 70% in 2015.

Facebook launched live video streaming last year and made it widely available in January. It expanded it further in April by adding real-time world maps of live broadcasts, reactions and Snapchat-style live filters.

Related: Facebook plans for life after Zuckerberg

In March, the company announced that it had acquired video filter app Masquerade, saying the merger would help it to "enhance the Facebook video experience." It did not disclose the value of the transaction.

The new video comments feature was developed at a Facebook hackathon early this year.

"We wanted to enable more engaging and immersive conversations. This adds to the suite of multimedia features within comments including: links, photos, stickers, emoji, and starting today video," Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin wrote in a blog post.

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