Facebook Tuesday introduced two new features aimed at enabling users to easily involve their friends in their Facebook Live videos and video viewing: Live Chat With Friends and Live With.
The social network is currently testing Live Chat With Friends, which enables users to have private conversations with friends during their live broadcasts, without having to leave the Facebook Live interface.
Facebook said in an email to Social Pro Daily that it expects the feature to be available to everyone “soon,” and product managers Erin Connolly and Fred Beteille added in a Newsroom post that Facebook Live videos spur more than 10 times the comments of non-Live videos. They wrote:
Live Chat With Friends lets you invite friends to a private chat about a public Live broadcast. You can invite friends who are already watching or other friends who you think may want to tune in. You’re able to jump back into the public conversation at any time, and you can still continue chatting via Messenger after the broadcast ends.
With Live Chat With Friends, you can be part of big moments with the wider community but also have the option to participate in personal conversations with the people closest to you, directly within the Live experience. We’re testing this feature on mobile in several countries, and we look forward to making it available more broadly later this summer.
FacebookLiveChatWithFriendsDemoVideo from SocialTimes on Vimeo.
Live With enables users to invite guests to join their Facebook Live broadcasts, and the social network said it is available for all profiles and pages via iOS. The screen can be shared with friends, even when they are not in the same place. Connolly and Beteille said the feature rolled out for public figures last year, adding:
To invite a friend to join you in your Live video, simply select a guest from the Live Viewers section or tap a comment from the viewer you want to invite. Your viewer can then choose whether or not to join your broadcast. You can go live with a guest in both portrait mode (for a picture-in-picture experience) and landscape mode (for a side-by-side experience). For a full tutorial, click here.
FacebookLiveWithDemoVideo from SocialTimes on Vimeo.
