Celebrities were given early access
Facebook Live Video is now trickling down to the masses. If you’ve never even heard of it, don’t feel bad about yourself. Live Video is Facebook’s live streaming feature that was introduced to the world about four months ago by several celebrities who were given full access ahead of time.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted videos of himself with his dog; Serena Williams posted live videos of herself backstage at Fashion Week; and Martha Stewart answered Thanksgiving questions.
Are you one of the “chosen ones”?
But as of Dec. 3, a small sample of “regular” Facebook users will discover that they have access to the Live Video. Depending on how smoothly this test goes and how many bugs these regular people run into, Facebook will then release Live Video to all Facebook users.
If you sign into your mobile account and notice that your status menu now offers you the option to select “Live Video,” you are one of the chosen few. Any videos you stream live will actually be saved to your timeline, unless you decide to delete them yourself. In addition, your streaming videos will show the number of live viewers, the names of who is watching, and the live comments as they are written.
Watch special moments live, make a video-photo collage
And while celebrities are interested in Live Video to garner more fans, regular folks like live streaming for an entirely different reason.
“The reasons people wanted it were quite different from celebrities,” says Julie Zhou, product design director at Facebook. “It was really more about inviting friends and families into special moments in people’s lives.”
Facebook is also simply trying to catch up with the times. They are essentially creating their own version of the hugely popular Meerkat and Periscope apps. To keep us on our toes, they included another surprise with Dec. 3rd’s announcement. Sharing photo collages is insanely popular, as everyone knows. But now you can combine photos and videos in one collage to send to family and friends! Unfortunately this feature is only available on the iPhone for now, but Android support will be available within the year.
Enjoy watching from the outside… for now
Until then, have fun viewing these combined collages from any device, and keep checking your phones for the day we all have access for the Live Video feature from Facebook.
