Facebook Live Available to All Pages

Once used in the Presidential inauguration and the f8 developer conference, Facebook Live is now available to all Pages. Facebook Live can stream video and chat onto a tab within Facebook. The video technology is partnered with Livestream.com; which allows easy sharing to Twitter and other social networks.

The chat (which ironically works better than the normal Facebook chat) is powered by Livestream, too. It requires the user to enter in a nickname or to login through Livestream. The default view on Facebook live shows status updates about the event, not the actual chat. To view the actual chat, the user has to click on the chat tab at the top. I have a feeling Facebook will switch the default view in the future, as it would allow people to interact while watching the video, not just advertise they’re watching it to their friends who might not be interested.

In reality, all this application does is embed Livestream into a clean user interface. The idea is that corporations can get more interaction on their Pages through live video. Unfortunately for the corporations, I think Facebook Live will better serve entertainers. Unless a corporation is revealing a new piece of technology that has a lot of buzz behind it, the likelihood of drawing a crowd is low. But an entertainer could use this on a regular basis to create and expand their following.

Facebook Live is not special because the technology is new; it’s special because the average user will be more likely to experience streaming through a medium they are comfortable with. I am excited to see if this actually catches on and helps the “less viral” entertainers gain new fans.