Facebook Inc.’s Watch video platform is now global after launching in the U.S. in August last year.

The service, which is touted as Facebook’s answer to YouTube, can now reach billions of people across the globe. Nonetheless, reports suggest that it hasn’t quite been a raging success in the U.S. since its inception. One study found that even after a year, about half of Facebook’s adult users have never heard of the service.

But Fidji Simo, Facebook’s head of video, said in a post Wednesday that the original content was drawing in 50 million people a month in the U.S. who watch on average videos for at least one minute. The total time spent watching content on Watch has increased 14 times in 2018, she said.

Users will see a Watchlist from pages they follow, with videos usually related to sports and entertainment. The list can be customized by adding more pages or by removing them. Facebook is selling the platform as not just a place to watch content, but where users can participate with the content, such as joining a trivia game.

The idea is to get people involved around the same piece of content they are watching at the same time. This started in January when the company released Watch Party, a “shared viewing experience” that Facebook hopes will create meaningful interactions around the content.

“It is built on the notion that watching video doesn’t have to be a passive experience,” Simo told the BBC. “You can have a two-way conversation about the content with friends, other fans or even the creators themselves.”

It also means revenue for video creators, but at the moment only select partners. Facebook said in another blog post that as long as the publisher has more than 10,000 followers and that publisher has been creating three-minute clips that have generated more than 30,000 one-minute views over the past two months, the page will be eligible for “Ad Breaks.”

At the moment Ad Breaks will only be available in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, but 22 more countries will soon follow and various languages will be supported.

Image: Facebook