On the heels of the announcement that you can watch Periscope live video streams in your Twitter timeline, Facebook announced that its streaming service, known as Live Video, will be in U.S. iPhone users’ Facebook News Feeds.
It’s as simple as sharing a status; there is now a Live Video icon in the status update bar, and you can add a description and choose the audience you want to share it with. When you begin streaming, you can see how many people (and who) are watching, and your audience can share comments with you. After concluding the stream, it goes directly onto your Timeline. You can choose whether you want to keep it there or not.
Facebook is also making it so public figures and verified Pages can use Live Videos, and the videos will all be available as a post in your News Feed. There’s also a subscribe button that will send you a notification when your favorite streamers go live. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on the action.
When I tried it out, it was really easy to figure out. I enjoyed seeing how many people were watching and reading their comments on what I was saying. It was a fun way to bring my diverse group of friends together.
Facebook has gotten a relatively late start into the live streaming video market. The Meerkat and Periscope apps have been around since early 2015, and Twitter scooped Periscope up before it even launched. Twitter has been aggressively making improvements on Periscope, announcing integrated timeline streaming a few weeks ago and GoPro live streaming earlier this week.
Live Video first rolled out to a select group of users beginning in December. Facebook definitely doesn’t want to miss out on what it sees as an opportunity to capture a hefty live streaming market share. Of course, it’s hard to know whether or not Facebook will accrue users who have already committed to the other services, but its large user base might be the key to Live Video’s success.
The company hopes to expand the service worldwide and to Android users in the coming weeks and months.
Image Credit: Facebook
From Kim on December 12, 2018 :: 8:58 pm
I tried to get into my account and was locked out. Facebook was telling me it was disabled. So I sent them an appeal and was told they did not disarm my account. I still can’t get into it. It is still on facebook and active but days its disabled to me.
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