Got an iPhone? Good news. You now can stream videos live through the Facebook app in the U.S.
Today, Facebook announced their expansion into live video streaming. Right now, all celebrities, verified users, and journalists with an iPhone can use Facebook’s new live broadcasting feature by tapping on the Update Status button, where they can write a brief description of the live stream. Users also have the option to choose a specific audience before going live.
Facebook’s video streaming feature has a bunch of other cool functions users can utilize:
- Users can see how many number of viewers are watching their live feed
- Users can see full names of the people that are viewing their feed
- There is a live comment box that viewers and the user can utilize and see real-time
- When the live broadcast is complete, it will be saved to the user’s timeline
- Users can discover friends and well-known figures that are using the live video stream
- Users can select the “subscribe” button to opt into a live broadcast
Facebook’s increased emphasis on making video become a bigger part of their social media platform doesn’t come without stats to back it up. In 2015, mobile video plays exceeded 44%, up 74% from 2014 and up a whopping 844% since 2012. Facebook’s fourth-quarter earnings report found that people watch 100 million hours of video every single day on their social media platform. Another interesting statistic Facebook found was that nearly 1 billion people around the world were accessing Facebook daily through their mobile device. These statistics alone can tell us that Facebook’s direction of integrating their new live video feature is a good step for their development.
Facebook plans to roll out their live streaming feature around the world in coming weeks. The social media platform is also working to have live video for Androids as well.
