Live video, as a format, is experiencing a huge boom in popularity, driven by content creators becoming more active as more and more services begin to embrace live video and make it easier for users to find and interact with broadcasts. Facebook has largely been at the forefront of this revolution, even going as far as pushing a number of changes to their app last month to bring live streaming to the masses. Their embracing of live video is set to continue, with a significant change to their main app for Android and iOS beginning to roll out to select users.
The redesigned Facebook app will feature a separate tab for video, allowing users to more easily find and navigate video content, both live and pre-recorded. Also on offer are live streaming for large groups, with dedicated group streaming for events, along with real-time interaction and reactions for live video views, the ability to invite friends to join in on the video stream you’re currently watching and a map showing live video feeds on Facebook as they happen worldwide, currently catering to 60 countries. On top of that, live broadcasters will be able to apply filters to their live video. Aside from the dedicated video tab, most of the changes will be rolling out to users fairly quickly starting today.
Facebook’s aggressive push into live video is on full display with these updates to their core app, taking live video from being a novelty that you have to fire up a dedicated app for to something that’s at all of Facebook’s user’s fingertips within the mobile app. No exact timeline for the new features to roll out was announced, aside from the fact that the dedicated tab will be the last feature in the bunch to hit users. While some of these changes may mirror rivals like Periscope and even Twitch, they seem to be the kind of vital things that will become integral to live video as a content delivery channel over time. Along with adopting standard practices, Facebook seems poised to begin observing users in the live streaming space in order to innovate and figure out new ways to take advantage of the coming live video revolution.