22 Jul Facebook Enables 50-Person Live Streams With Messenger Rooms via @MattGSouthern
Facebook Live and Messenger Rooms are coming together to make it possible for 50-person group chats to be broadcast live.
“Whether you’re hosting a book club with friends, interviewing a panel of experts, teaching a fitness class, or broadcasting with your friends for fun, going live from a room lets you interact with audiences of any size.”
Use of Facebook Live has only continued to stay high following its spike back in March.
With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down most indoor public spaces, many are turning to Facebook Live as a virtual venue of sorts.
The company shares some of the unique ways in which Facebook Live is being used lately:
“From artists raising money for efforts they care about and local zoos hosting daily safari adventures, to congregations coming together for worship and couples exchanging vows, people are finding creative ways to connect through Facebook Live.”
Facebook says live broadcasts from pages doubled in June 2020 compared to the same time last year.
As people continue to practice safe social distancing, the limitations of Facebook Live become more apparent.
With only two accounts being able to stream together on Facebook Live, it’s not exactly easy for groups of people to broadcast from a distance.
That’s a problem this update to Messenger Rooms is designed to fix.
Messenger Rooms Live Broadcasts
Messenger Rooms are drop-in group video calls that make it easy to have casual conversations with your friends, your audience, and people who share similar interests.
Anyone can join a Messenger Room as long as they have a link to it. They don’t even need to have a Facebook account.
With the ability to turn Messenger Rooms into live streams, it’s now possible to have dozens of people all broadcasting from the comfort of their own home.
The creator of a Messenger Room can choose to make it go live with a simple setting, which will broadcast the video call to Facebook.
During the broadcast, the room creator has full control over everything, including:
- Who can view the broadcast.
- Whether to broadcast the Messenger Room to a profile, page, or group.
- Adding or removing participants.
- Locking and unlocking a room.
With these controls in place, Facebook Pages can easily broadcast multi-person live streams with all remote participants.
First, a page manager creates the Messenger Room and makes it invite-only.
Next, invites are sent for other participants to join the room.
Then, when all participants have joined, the room can be broadcast live via a Facebook Page.
People who see the broadcast in their news feed can click to tune in, just like viewing any other live stream on Facebook.
This feature is rolling out in some countries on Facebook and Messenger web starting today, and will soon expand to all countries where Messenger Rooms is available, as well as to the Facebook and Messenger mobile app and Messenger desktop app.
Countries that do not have access to this feature will still be able to view live broadcasts of Messenger Rooms from others.
For more on Messenger Rooms, see:
Source: Facebook
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