Today Facebook has announced new features for Facebook Live to give the Facebook users more ways to discover, share, and interact with live video, and more ways to personalize their live broadcasts.
And Facebook is rolling out the ability to go live in Facebook Groups and Facebook Events. Live in Groups allows you to broadcast to just the people in the Facebook Group – so you can go live in your family group, or share a workout plan in a fitness group. Live in Events means you can go live from a birthday party to allow those that can’t make it to join the fun.
Live Reactions makes it easy for your viewers to express their feelings in real time during a live broadcast. Using the same reactions Facebook launched in News Feed, viewers can select Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry, and the reactions animate right on top of the video. Live Reactions appear in real time and disappear quickly so broadcasters and other viewers can get a sense of how people are feeling at different points during the live video – it’s like hearing the crowd applaud and cheer. When your friend reacts to your video or to a video you are both watching together you’ll see their profile pic and a little starburst before their reaction appears.
And, Facebook is introducing Live Creative Tools, for example, set of five Live Filters to personalize the live broadcasts, and it is planning to add the ability to draw or doodle on your video while live.
Facebook is adding an option to send an invitation to a friend to watch with you right from the live video. Simply tap on the invite icon and select the friend you want to invite and they will receive a push notification with your invitation.
Today, Facebook is starting to roll out a dedicated place on Facebook’s mobile app where you can discover live video that the world is talking about, live video from the friends and creators that matter most to you, and live video on topics you’re interested in. From that place, you can also search live and non-live videos, and choose to go live yourself. Simply tap on the new video icon in the app to navigate to this new space.
If you want a visual way to explore public live broadcasts that are currently happening around the world, you can use Facebook Live Map on desktop. People in more than 60 countries can now share live video
The Facebook Live Map gives you a window into what’s happening in the world right now.
These features will be rolling out on iOS and Android over the coming weeks.
