Facebook has just revealed that it will be adding live streaming capabilities to its iPhone app. Called Facebook “Live”, the new addition will enable users to post live stream videos directly within NewsFeed. So what can we expect from the update, and will it impact other live-streaming apps?

Previously, live-streaming was limited to celebrity and verified business pages only, with this feature added to mobile back in August. But now, ordinary users will be able to share videos with the audience of their choice from within their circle of friends and family. They’ll also be able to discover new live-streams directly in NewsFeed, from both those in their network, and any public figures they follow, and be able to subscribe to these users for new videos notifications. Whilst broadcasting a live-stream themselves, the user will be able to see the number of live viewers, as well as who’s tuning in, with real-time comments also appearing as they would on Periscope or Meerkat, for instance. Broadcasts are then saved to the user’s Timeline, with he or she free to delete or re-watch these in future.

The service has already launched in the US, with it set to roll out to the rest of the world over the coming weeks. And it’s certainly a lucrative progression on Facebook’s part, as users worldwide are already watching an estimated 3 billion videos per day, with 53 per cent of video views come from re-shares.  The clever thing about Facebook’s new feature is that it will be able to capitalise on the amount of video views generated on the platform- the likelihood is that many more of these will come from viewers re-watching live stream broadcasts.

So might this update affect Meerkat and Periscope’s popularity? The advantage Facebook has with enabling live-streaming, is that videos are permanent unless the user decides to delete them, whereas videos on Meerkat are immediately deleted, and on Periscope only last for 24 hours. This makes it a more attractive platform particularly for celebrity content creators, or news pages, many of whom will want to have an archive of useful and entertaining videos. However, we doubt Meerkat and Periscope’s loyal and existing user base will make the switch to Facebook, especially with already established accounts. And secondly for ordinary users, his or her live-stream audience is restricted to family and friends only, meaning reach is limited too. The other disadvantage we envisage for Facebook, is how it will manage to pull in real-time audiences for each user’s video, given the non-chronological nature of NewsFeed- Facebook has always been known to push popular content higher, so how can users guarantee their efforts will be seen? If the site follows the example of how it promotes  celebrity live-streams, then some type of alert will be published to notify viewers of a new video. We’re sure that the site will have certainly taken this into consideration with its algorithm updates, but until the service rolls out fully, this is our biggest area of skepticism.

For these reasons, we can’t yet see Facebook’s update impacting on other live streaming apps- it will most likely simply be a fun and novel way for existing Facebook users to create new types of posts, all while helping the company boost its video view count too. So the question is- will you be looking forward to testing out Facebook’s new feature? How do you think it will further add to the online video landscape in future? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.