Facebook just started rolling out a new feature to Messenger that lets you watch TV together with your friends.
Aptly named Watch Together, the new feature for Messenger is a way for Facebook to join the trend of watch parties. Over the last few months, a number of services have added their own versions of these.
Hulu, Disney+, and more have already been offering a watch party option for a little while. But while Facebook may be a little later to that party, it’s here now. And the company thinks you’re going to love it. It’s probably right.
Watch Together for Facebook Messenger supports TV shows, movies, and uploaded videos
The content isn’t likely to be as vast as what Hulu offers, but Watch Together appears like it won’t be bare.
The feature will offer collections of TV shows and movies, such as Community, Dawson’s Creek and a number of other options, and it supports uploaded videos from content creators. Or you can simply watch your own uploaded videos.
Watch Together also supports up to 50 people at once. You’ll need to have started a Room though. For regular Messenger group video calls, the feature supports up to 8 people at a time. While Rooms is the one that supports up to 50.
This is also another way for content creators to potentially reach new viewers. Say you have one friend that is always watching a particular creator. They can now start a video call and then set up Watch Together and begin watching one of their videos to share it with everyone.
Which in the long run may lead to some of those friends becoming regular viewers.
Start a video call or Room first, then turn on the Watch Together feature
To enable the feature you’ll need to first start a video call or Room. From there, you can swipe up to reveal the Watch Together feature alongside already existing options and settings.
Once you tap Watch Together, you’ll get a screen that has a collection of different content. Users can select videos from various categories including TV and Movies, Uploaded, Watched, Suggested and more.
Suggested content is curated, so it’s stuff that’s based on videos you already watch on the platform. Though you can easily browse from the collection of stuff Facebook is making available if you want a little more control.
Facebook says this is rolling out this week. So some users may already have access to it, or should before the week is over.