Facebook Wants You Able To Live-Stream Whatever You’re Doing To Everyone You Know… Eventually

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You can already use Facebook to sign in to locations, tell everyone what you think about them, post pictures of what you did there, leave reviews of how it went, and host video of all your shenanigans. So why not use it as a platform to live-stream your escapades too? That’s the big new feature coming next to Facebook, The Verge reports. And really, it’s not a huge surprise. Facebook let certain, verified, “public figure” (celebrity or news) accounts start live-streaming through the social network a few months back; now, the rest of us get to try it out. Where a major media outlet might live-stream some piece of news in the same way they might broadcast it, Facebook anticipates that most private individuals will use the service in a different way. They might, for example, live-stream a kid’s birthday party so that family around the country can tune in, or broadcast the moment of some major accomplishment. Facebook is just the latest to jump onto the live-streaming bandwagon; the tech has shaped up to be the big trend of 2015 and beyond. Not only is it fully integrated into the world of gaming — Amazon paid nearly $1 billion for Twitch last year for good reason, and both Xbox and PlayStation current-gen consoles have ways for users to stream and view — but also is showing up all over the world of mobile as well. Meerkat became a phenomenon early this year, with Twitter-owned Periscope right behind it. The ability for anyone, anywhere, to instantly live-broadcast whatever they’re doing over the internet has had huge implications for everything from protest movements to media piracy. Integrating it with Facebook and its 1.5-billion-strong user base puts it in essentially every pocket, inside an app that billions already know inside-out. Don’t rush out and start broadcasting your evening commute just yet, though: like many other features, it’s coming out on a careful, staggered basis. Some iOS users will be updated to seeing “live video” as an option in their status menu today, but it’s going to take time for it to show up for everyone else. Facebook begins testing live video streaming for all users [The Verge]

1. by Kate Cox
2. via Consumerist

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