Just a couple of weeks ago, Instagram announced that they would be bringing Live Video to their platform. This is a feature that has done fairly well for Facebook (who owns Instagram) in recent months, so it’s hardly a surprise to see it coming to Instagram. The company announced in November that they would be rolling it out in the “coming weeks” and today, they began rolling it out to all of their users in the US. This means that over the next few days, every Instagram user in the US will have access to this new live video feature. Additionally, this is not part of a new update to the Instagram app, but rather a server-side change. There’s also no indication of whether this is going to be an iOS or Android only release, but since it is a server-side change, the platform likely doesn’t matter.
Facebook debuted live video, dubbed “Facebook Live”, earlier this year as a way to combat the popularity of Periscope. For the uninitiated, Periscope is owned by Twitter, and it allows users to go live and broadcast whatever they are doing. Periscope even has integration with the DJI Phantom 4, so you are able to live stream from a drone (which is pretty cool, to be honest). Facebook Live now allows you to do much more than just broadcast from your smartphone, but you can also broadcast a live show, like The Fast and the Furious did last night, as they were showing off the trailer for the upcoming movie, The Fate of the Furious.
Instagram’s live video will be part of their stories feature. So not only can you post pictures and video to your story, but you can also stream directly to your story. This means that your live video won’t be available forever, and will actually disappear within 24 hours. That’s much different from Facebook’s approach, which keeps the video available on a person’s Facebook page until they delete the post. The rollout should be complete by the end of the week, and as we mentioned it is a server-side change, so unfortunately there’s not much you can do to get the live video feature sooner.