Live Video is getting a bigger push by Facebook, evident by its advertising campaign and the fact we all get a notification every time one of our friends are ‘live’. Facebook are now finding innovative ways to keep the feature current and engaging. After introducing features like ‘masks’ which many of the most popular apps use, they have now found a way to differentiate themselves from the rest.
(Facebooks ‘Live’ campaign)
Go Live with a friend is now available on Instagram. When announcing the change, they explained how it worked: “Live video helps you share in an authentic way, but sometimes it can be intimidating when you’re on your own. It’s easy to add a guest while you’re broadcasting. Simply tap the new icon on the bottom right and tap “Add” to invite anyone who’s currently watching. Once they join, you’ll see the screen split into two and your friend pop up right below you.”
You can find their blog at http://blog.instagram.com/post/166748594937/171024-livewith
(Image taken from Instagrams ‘Go Live with a Friend’ blog)
The advertising for this new feature seems to be aimed at a younger audience, using models that look in their Pre-teens, in the promotional video the two are just having a bit of harmless fun on camera with each other, the question this raises to me is ‘Is this really something that needs to be broadcasted live?’... Probably not, however, I do believe this feature could become useful for people that are wanting to make an event more interesting, due to the fact you can have two different perspectives.
Imagine being at an awards do and being able to showcase both the perspective of someone receiving the prize and the perspective of someone witnessing them receive the prize. It’s a fun little feature in that sense, however, I do believe it verges on gimmick. Only time will tell if the Live Video feature fizzles or stands the test of time, but for now, it seems as if Live Video will be something Facebook is going to keep on pushing onto us as much as they can.