Facebook users would have, at some point in the last few of months, received a new kind of notifications saying “ is now live”. Clicking on this new notification, a familiar face is seen talking to their screen or recording some sort of event, and all this is being streamed LIVE. This new feature is called Facebook Live Video and everyone with a smartphone and the Facebook App installed, now has to opportunity to become Anchormen in their very own ‘Live News About My Life’ broadcast.

This new Live Video feature from the social media giant, was rolled out in the US earlier this year initially released for iOS users but now along with a global roll-out, will be introduced on Android versions too making it wildly accessible. It’s a great tool to show off whatever you are doing live to your friends, family, or the general public if you so wish. Facebook Live comes with the added bonus of seeing how many people are watching your content, who they are, and you even get to interact with them, all in real time. Oh yes, you can block the trolls and people who’s comments you don’t like.

Take-up for the new Facebook Live Video platform seemed slow at first but with a few celebrities using it to share content with their fans, and seeing the number of my friends that are now using it, looks like it’ll be a steady feature in my notifications panel. For the most part, videos I’ve watched have been of OK quality and I believe with a better internet connection streams will only be more enjoyable and less ‘laggy’. Facebook have also added a new Live Video link to the side bar to enable the viewing of live streams from all over the world. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll be using that link much if at all but I suppose it’ll be great a means to nose around places that hit the news or something similar.

From a business perspective, Live stream can be used as an alternative to Google’s Hangout if all you need is to broadcast what you business is currently up to. You have a 30 minute broadcast limit and the footage is then stored on your feed for future use. It could be describe as a free webinar platform for interacting with customers. I suspect more businesses will take this up once the general public have accepted it as part of their usual social interaction tool. Marketing teams should get on this as soon as possible.

Main concern here is who’s moderating all the content being streamed live? Not wanting to be negative but, like with other things, such a platform in my opinion will be subject to misuse and abuse. Yes, trolls can be blocked but whoever is behind the camera can stream virtually anything. Sure its down to the viewer to choose or not to watch what’s being broadcast but who’s stopping the spread of live pornography, assault videos, or other graphic materials? I suppose if the likes of Snapchat are doing very well then maybe Facebook should do just fine too.

For more inform on how to get your very own Facebook Live Video Stream, please read this blog here http://adeoye.co.uk/use-facebook-live-video-stream-android/

Please do let me know your thoughts and comments on this as it’s my first post on here 🙂

Happy streaming!!