“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”, Facebook product managers Vadim Lavrusik and Thai Tran wrote today in a blog post.
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The new features underscore the company’s deepening commitment to video, which is gaining a growing share of digital audiences, especially on mobile devices, while commanding higher ad rates.
Messenger notifications will move to the top of Facebook’s mobile apps near the search box. Or, they can scroll down to two sections: videos from “Around the World” and from “Your Friends and Pages”.
If you’re watching a video once it’s no longer live, you’ll now be able to see comments as they occurred (previously it could be confusing to watch a video after it broadcast, because you’d see someone on camera responding to comments live, but not know exactly what those comments were).
Now you can click on “reaction” emojis during Facebook Live videos.
Some of the new features in the latest round of updates are more important than others, according to Will Cathcart, Facebook’s vice president of product management.
The animations are short and will not intrude too much, says Facebook.
“We’ve introduced this so everyone can see all the reactions from the crowd at the same time”, he tells Newsbeat.
Facebook also teased a new feature that will let people doodle on their live videos a la Snapchat.
“This will help people to make sense of things like why the broadcaster answered a question”, Will explains. Facebook says it’s akin to a round of applause. Check out the Live Reactions, Discovery Tab and more options which address the needs of the increasing community of streamers.
To build on the interactivity, Facebook is making more of the ability to comment on live videos.
Facebook Live is about to get livelier.
“We want people watching the broadcast after the fact to feel “in” on the action”, Facebook notes. And yet there’s still something about Facebook’s belated embrace of live video that comes across as inauthentic. People kept changing their profile picture every day, so we developed that as part of Facebook.
If one of your friends happens to go live, you can tap the Subscribe button so you won’t miss any future broadcasts from that person. Since 2014, Facebook has seen daily video views grow eightfold to 8 billion. That’s bound to make publishers happy which are being coaxed by Facebook to start producing monthly content for the site versus uploading videos to their own websites, The Verge reported. That’s because some people have used live video to share shots of movies and pay-per-view sporting events that are protected by copyright.
Live video has become a huge priority for Facebook, even as some users express annoyance about constantly being notified of new live videos.
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The company has been pouring big bucks into its Live product.
