Facebook Adds Major New Features to Live Videos

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Facebook’s Live Video is being enhanced with major new features, making videos more interesting and accessible. If you haven’t tried Live Video yet, you’ll be able to find videos more easily. If you have tried Live Videos, you’ll find new options that make videos more interactive.

Yesterday, Facebook announced major updates to Live Video and shared data on how successful the feature has been. According to Facebook, Live Videos get 10x as many comments as any other videos shared on Facebook.

To learn more about Facebook Live Video, check out  => Facebook’s Fun New Photo Collages, GIFs and Live Video Features

But sometimes finding Live Videos to watch can be challenging. Unless you’ve subscribed to someone’s Live Videos, you may not know that videos are being broadcast.

Facebook is making Live Videos easier to find. You can find videos from your Facebook friends or from people around the world.

Finding Live Videos to Watch

Wondering what to watch? Check out these new pages that help you find broadcasts from around the world.

Live 24

Facebook is introducing a “Best of” feature for Live Videos, called Live 24. On the Live 24 Facebook page you can find the best Facebook videos from the past 24 hours.

On the first day of Live 24, Facebook chose to include Live Videos from Big Brother Brazil, Harry Potter, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Meet the Press, NASDAQ, Lucy Lawless, American Museum of Natural History,  NFL on ESPN and many more.

Live Map

Want to watch Live Videos from around the world? Facebook now has a Live Map page where you can see on a map where Live Videos are being broadcast.

Dots represent where people are broadcasting Live Videos and the size of the dot represents how many people are watching. Hover over a dot to see a box showing who is broadcasting a Live Video and how many viewers are watching. Some boxes have lines coming from them showing where around the world people are viewing the Live Video.

Click on the dot to start watching the Live Video.

You may also see from the description the language of the broadcast. I’d like to see Facebook add a filter for languages so you could easily find Live Broadcasts in a selected language.

Replay Comments

If you missed watching a video live, you can replay it later. Now you can read comments that were posted by viewers who watched the video live.

Broadcasting Videos

You can now broadcast videos to Facebook Groups or Events. If you’ve created a Facebook Event or are a member of a Facebook Group, you can let all of your friends you invited to the Event, or who are members of the Group watch your Live Video.

Facebook launched five new filters you can use on your videos. Live Videos will soon let you draw and doodle as you broadcast.

Invite Friends

Want to be sure your Facebook friends see your Live Video? Send them an invitation to watch you. They’ll get a notification that you’re broadcasting.

Reactions

Reactions, the new emojis you can use with your comments on posts, can now be used in Live Videos. Use Reactions to share your feelings as you’re broadcasting a Live Videos. Viewers will be able to see your Reactions and share their own.

Reactions from viewers appear briefly along the screen so you can see how others are reacting to the video in real-time.

Availability

Live Video is available via the Facebook website and apps for iPhone and Android. According to Facebook, Live Videos is being rolled out to Android users and is now available in over 60 countries on the Android app.

These new features are being introduced gradually to users around the world in the coming weeks.

Your Thoughts

Have you used Facebook Live Videos yet? Are you excited to find videos from around the world? Have you checked out the Best of Live Videos on Facebook? Which of these new features are most exciting for you?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
*Facebook icon image (edited) courtesy of mkhmarketing, via Flickr and Creative Commons

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If you’re learning English and want to know more about tech, head to my personal technology column at Voice of America Learning English. This week’s article: Find Your Best Place to Live.