Weekly Rewind
Roku’s positive year and quest for cash: Roku is publicly thumping its chest after a strong 2016, which ended with 13.4 million active users. That’s up from 10 million users in June, and accounts for 48 percent of all U.S. streaming player activity. Roku also says it pulled in $400 million in revenue last year.
Why does this matter? Sources told Fortune this week that Roku is looking to raise more money from private investors, as the company is backed by venture funding and probably isn’t profitable. The extra funds could give Roku more room to modernize its apps, expand onto more smart televisions, and develop more ties to cable providers, who are slowly adding their TV services to streaming boxes. (Some speculate that Comcast could be one of Roku’s next investors.) The growth figures show that Roku is still on solid footing despite tougher competition from Apple, Amazon, and Google.
Facebook on TV: After weeks of teasing, Facebook has launched an app for Apple TV and Samsung smart TVs. Connect the app to your Facebook account, and it brings up a list of videos based on what your friends are sharing, along with another list based on your interests (presumably gathered by following you around the web). The app also includes live feeds and a list of videos you’ve watched recently on Facebook’s other apps and website.
Whether this is of interest depends on largely on the people you follow and the things you tend to do on the Internet, which in turn might lead to feelings of anxiety as you peruse a vast array of uninteresting content. But at least the app is nicely-designed. A version for Amazon’s Fire TV is coming soon.
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