Facebook sets foot in the live streaming marketplace, but broadcasts only for the social elite, at present
The network added the feature to Mentions, the app launched in July 2014 that actors, celebrities and musicians can use to engage with their fans.
Live, as the live streaming feature is called, will show up in your News Feed if a celebrity you follow decides to start a live stream. You will also receive a notification about the broadcast if you have recently interacted with a celebrity’s posts. You can like, comment on or share the video while viewing a stream.
Facebook Product Manager, Vadim Lavrusik said: “Live is an immersive and authentic way to connect with the public figures you care about, in real-time.Whether you have an established fan base or want to build up your audience, Live is a new way for you to connect authentically with your fans in the moment.
When you start a Live video, it will appear in News Feed for your fans to comment, like and share with their friends. People who have recently interacted with your posts will also receive a notification when you start your broadcast.
Keep a keen eye on the Moments app over the coming days!”
To read the full article, visit Facebook’s Media Hub.
For Facebook Chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, the future of the network relies heavily upon its user base adopting immersive video.
He said: “People love video – our video demand is very deep. There’s this continued progression of people getting richer and richer ways to share what’s on their mind, so if you go back ten years, most of how people communicated was through text. We’re going through a period where now it’s mostly visual and photos (users spend around 46 minutes every day viewing visual material on Facebook). We’re entering into a period where that’s increasingly going to be video – and we’re seeing huge growth there. But that’s not the end of the line.”
“There’s always a richer way that people want to share and consume thoughts and ideas,” he added.
To read the full article, visit WIRED.
Digiday’s Sahil Patel believes Facebook has to overcome its view-logging problems before taking on YouTube and mastering video
“Facebook might be generating buzz among video creators and advertisers for its growing video numbers — 4 billion views per day — but YouTube has the platform where it is still safe to assume people are actually watching the content. And as the two companies battle for Web video supremacy, YouTube’s “watch time” metric might be the key differentiator as it tries to fend off its newest and biggest rival.
Facebook counts a view three seconds after a video has started playing. The approach has helped the company drum up huge viewership totals for content natively uploaded to its platform, but this simply isn’t sustainable – or a true reflection of engagement.”
To read the full article, visit Digiday.
Not content with conquering just video, Facebook is knuckling down on the way in which it reports on and conveys live events
“In July, a number of users in the US saw an enhanced Places feature with friends’ photos, status updates, check-ins and videos in an attempt to make its Yelp-like feature useful for those who didn’t attend an event in Chicago.
“Facebook has been struggling to capture the immediacy of live events, partly because of News Feed’s algorithm, which doesn’t always show users everything that their friends are posting as it’s happening. So, this experiment is likely a way to make it relevant against Snapchat and Twitter by presenting a unified events tool. The stream looks like a mix of the former’s Live Stories and the latter’s digestible bits of information mixed with photos.
“This move could be seen as a pre-emptive strike against Twitter’s Project Lightning set to launch later this tear, where users curate tweets and photos from live events in an attempt to broaden Twitter’s textual scope.”
A Facebook spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal: “This Places experience is just one of the many ways Facebook is trying to help people get the feel of an event when they’re not there.”
To read the full article, visit Digiday.
When not viewing video, users are searching on Facebook in their droves, but does the network post a tangible threat to Google?
“Google has many reasons to fear Facebook. Don’t count robbing its search business among them, yet.
“During Facebook’s second-quarter earnings call Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network hosts more than 1.5 billion searches a day. But in September of 2012, Zuckerberg said Facebook was then seeing around one billion queries a day, without effort.
“That year, Facebook introduced Graph Search, bringing it to mobile devices last December. Zuckerberg has pledged to build out a business around search, but one has yet to emerge. In the fourth quarter of 2014, he cited the daily search number as just over one billion.”
To read the full article, visit re/code.
They may appear to be trailing behind, but could AOL and Microsoft sneak up on Google and Facebook?
“With the recent deal between AOL and Microsoft, the two companies hope to combine their respective strengths to become a digital supernova.
“AOL will take over the management and sales of Microsoft’s mobile and video ads around the world. In exchange, Microsoft’s Bing will displace Google as the core engine powering its search results and ads on AOL sites.
“According to comScore’s most recent analysis of the desktop searches in the US, Google maintains a 64 percent share, compared with Microsoft’s 20 percent. When AOL properties switch search engines, that number could shift. Yahoo saw a massive jump in its share after replacing Google as the default search engine on Mozilla’s Firefox browser last year.”
To read the full article, visit Search Engine Watch.
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