Facebook began offering Live Video streaming exclusively to celebrities in August, and then it expanded the service to a small group of regular users in December. Now, at the tail-end of January, the feature is rolling out to everyone.
Live Video is now available to all iPhone users in the US. Facebook says that it’ll roll the feature out to the rest of the world “over the coming weeks.” Facebook says that it’s working to bring Live Video to Android “soon.”
To start streaming live video to your friends, launch your Facebook app and hit the Update Status button. You can then tap the Live Video icon next to the photo, tag, and location buttons.
Once your video is live, you’ll be able to see how many people are viewing your stream, which of your friends are watching, and a real-time comment stream. After you end the video, your video will be saved to your Timeline so that folks that missed the live broadcast can watch.
Periscope is the big livestreaming video app right now, but Periscope is owned by Twitter. As a result, it makes sense for Facebook to give all of its users access to its own Live Video streaming feature. The move is an attempt to let folks stream video just like they would with Periscope, but Live Video will likely be easier for Facebook friends to watch both during the stream and after the stream has ended.