Commentary

Facebook Opens Up Mentions (Sort Of)

Facebook is throwing open the doors to Mentions, its app previously only available to celebrities -- well, kind of. Before, Mentions was only available to the truly famous, requiring a verified Page.

Now, it is open to mere “public figures” including journalists, as long as they have a verified Profile.

By opening the app to the semi-unwashed masses, Facebook is giving journos and other peons access to its new live streaming function, which means they can do live broadcasts for example with on-site reporting, or conducting interactive interviews with live Q&A sessions.

Facebook Mentions Live broadcasts are posted to their followers’ News Feeds, and frequent visitors to the public figure’s page or profile will also get alerts via push notifications. Fans can post comments that appear in real time, and the videos are later archived for repeat viewing. 

Facebook introduced Live, and is now expanding its availability, in a bid to fend off a challenge from Twitter, which is trying to dominate the leave streaming video space with Periscope (which was, in turn, its own answer to Meerkat, the live-streaming broadcast service that piggybacked on Twitter).

After Twitter gave Meerkat the boot, the latter moved on to Facebook, first allowing brands to share links to video streams through Facebook Connect, then enabling users to sign up for Meerkat directly through Facebook. However the Facebook integration doesn’t include live alerts to friends when a stream is about to begin.

Video is exploding on Facebook, with over four billion video views per day as of April, up from three billion per day just three months before, and the social giant is rolling out new video ad products at a frantic pace.

In July, for example, it introduced ads that appear in a gallery of video content as part of “suggested videos,” enabling users to tap on a link from their Newsfeed to access the relevant video ads.

Next story loading loading..