Facebook has been improving its live video option. If you've missed out on this, it's a function that allows you to share a video stream live with people on Facebook. It will be recorded and will be available afterwards, and people can connect with you by commenting, and asking questions for example. It's a really nice tool to share what you're doing, show people how to do something or just have a general chat. As Facebook says “Live in Groups allows you to broadcast to just the people in the Facebook Group – so you can go live in your family group, or share a workout plan in a fitness group. Live in Events means you can go live from a birthday party to allow those that can’t make it to join the fun, and a performer can go live backstage to the people who’ve RSVP-ed to the event to give them a sneak peak.”
If you're on your desk/lap top, over on the left hand side menu bar you'll see an option for 'Live video'. You'll then get a new screen popping up which looks like this:
In the top left hand corner the video that you can see is the most popular currently being broadcast. You can click on any of the videos and it will pop into the main part of the screen, and you can then comment, like etc.
You can zoom in on the global map and by hovering your mouse over a video you can see the live stream, but you'll also get to see where people are watching the video from:
How significant is this? I think it's fairly important, and it's going to fire a shot over the bows of some of the other streaming tools that are available, such as Periscope for example. Facebook has ensured that you can share video with the public, or with specific groups, so there's a fair amount of control over it. More would be good however, and the way in which people can interact is fairly basic. I suspect that we will see this functionality improving a lot in the near future.
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