Facebook is upping its game with new Live Video update that brings a large number of features ranging from Live Reactions, improved discovery and more.
The latest update is all about making it easy for users to discover, share, and interact with live video, and more ways to personalize live broadcasts. First up, Facebook Live is getting the ability to go live in Facebook Groups and Facebook Events. With Live in Groups, users can broadcast to just the people in the Facebook Group while in case of Live in Events, users can go live from any event and users can join in. In addition, you can even use Events to schedule a live Q&A session.
Next up, Reactions which rolled out recently are now coming to Facebook Live which will allow users to express their feelings in real time during a live broadcast. Live Reactions like Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry, and the reactions animate will appear in right on top of the video. Facebook says that Live Reactions will appear in real time and not stay for long. Users profile pic and a little starburst will appear in front of their reactions that are being given to videos.
Facebook is also adding few elements of Instagram to Live Videos and bringing Live Filters in a bid to make them more personalized. The social network says it will soon bring the ability to doodle or draw on your videos. According to Facebook, people comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos, hence, the update will replay comments as they happen during the live broadcast when people watch it later.
Moving on, Facebook Live is also getting the ability to send an invitation to a friend to watch with you right from the live video. You need to simply tap on the invite icon and select the friend you want to invite and they will receive a push notification with your invitation. In order to make video discovery better, Facebook is adding a dedicated button for Facebook Live on its mobile apps which will allow you to search live and non-live videos, live videos on topics of your interests and so on. You will have to tap the new video icon in the app to navigate to this new space. Finally, Facebook Live Map for Web will offer you a visual way to explore public live broadcasts that are currently happening around the world.
For those unaware, Facebook had launched Live Videos in December last year which was the company’s answer to Twitter’s Periscope. Earlier this month, the social network has changed the algorithm again to put Live Video streams on top of your News Feed. Facebook has been taking videos seriously for some time now and has been working hard to push Facebook Live as a alternative to Periscope.