It's been months since the live video streaming for celebrities and high-profile users on Facebook has been introduced. Now, the company is rolling another feature inclusive for everyone inside its flagship app.
Facebook users, regardless of who they are or where they are, can use the redesigned status menu to select "live video". The feature has been tested this week with all the users all over the world. Unlike Meerkat and Periscope, Facebook video streams display a number of viewers, names of friends watching, and real-time comments. It can also save videos on the user's timeline and keep them unless users will decide to delete them.
"Live lets you show the people you care about what you're seeing in real time -- whether you're visiting a new place, cooking your favorite recipe, or just want to share some thoughts," said Vadim Lavrusik and Thai Tran, product managers at Facebook.
The Live Video feature was tested on a small percentage of Apple iPhone users and the feedbacks are quite good. With the release of the new feature, Facebook representatives are hoping to bring the said feature to Android which is Google's mobile operating system.
Facebook move to embrace video streaming reflects their goal to capture more of the real-time content to drive global conversation. In other live-streaming apps, videos are tap to go live. On Facebook, live videos are set to the public which will generate notifications on the generated list of close friends. It also contains a subscribe button to alert users for new broadcasts.
Facebook have 1.5 billion users all over the world and becomes one of the most popular sites for video streaming. According to the company based in Menlo Park, California, people view more than 8 billion videos in a day on the platform.
According to the Verge, 75 percent of the video views on Facebook take place on mobile devices which is the preferred platform of advertisers. Also, recent surveys reveal that majority of the US advertising executives plan to run a video ad on Facebook this year. The survey shows possibilities that Facebook can beat YouTube and Twitter in video streaming.
