Facebook launches live video for celebrities

Facebook has introduced a ‘live streaming’ function in its app Mentions, that caters exclusively to celebrities helping them connect with their fans/followers. The Mentions app is available only to ‘actors, athletes, musicians and other influencers’ who are verified by the social media network but will be accessible to all Facebook and mentions users. Facebook has said that over a thousand celebrities are active on Mentions.

The new live streaming function for celebs is likely to give Facebook an edge in the video segment of social media. Celebrities can now use the Mentions iOS app to video stream a live session and connect with Facebook users via the social network’s platform. Users will get a message from Facebook when a celebrity they follow ‘is live’ and on tapping the message they can view the video.

Should users miss out on a live video, Facebook archives the same under the celebrities’ page and can be accessed by users at a later time unless the celebrity chooses to remove the video from her Mentions app. According to Facebook’s Live Products Manager Vadim Lavrusik, “Over 53% of Facebook video views constitute re-shares which happen much later than the post. We think this would be an awesome experience for both public figures and also users. We want to get feedback from both public figures and viewers as we evolve the product.”

Users can also comment on the proceedings similar to Meerkat and Periscope, live streaming apps that are open to everyone. Celebrities can also see how many viewers they are addressing while broadcasting the video and respond to comments posted by the users in live time. Facebook could outpace those in the live streaming market given its 1.49 billion monthly users.

Facebook also announced that celebrities Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Serena Williams, Luke Bryan, Ricardo Kaka, Ashley Tisdale, Lester Holt, Martha Stewart and Michael Buble would be broadcasting videos via Mentions in the coming days. Celebrities also have the option of turning off comments on their screen while broadcasting their video. Facebook will monitor comments and offensive comments will be hidden from the stream. Celebrities can also include words in their page’s moderation blacklist to block out topics they do not want to discuss. Mentions live streams are embeddable and can be shared to various other platforms.