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Live from Facebook: Let's Put On a Show

We're not entirely sure what the 800-pound social network has in mind in its new live streaming video offering, but they plugged whatever it is in last week. Facebook Live is a video streaming channel at the site that is supposed to take us inside the company. The socially-enhanced feed allows for live Q&A with the audience through an "Ask a Question" feature that directs the query to the moderator. The video is surrounded by the real-time Live Feed of everyone who is watching as well as a chat feature.

The content is an odd mix of talk-show, news and B2B-style content. In just the first few days we have seen an interview with America Ferrera to push her new indie move, but there have also been a feed of an internal lecture at Facebook and an interview with one of the first Facebook speakers in their company speaker series. Most of the videos come from the Palo Alto home office. We have also heard from one of the Facebook engineers and European Policy Director.

Facebook Live takes the form of an app that users can plant onto their own pages. Once the programming falls into some sort of regular schedule and predictable mix then it may be of value to various members to post specific programming. There is a full suite of sharing options for distributing the video on and off the Facebook world as well.

It all feels more like a proof of concept and technology than a fully shaped video project. The content for now feels like public access TV run by the kids in AV class. But it certainly speaks to Facebook's ambitions to move more deeply into the video social networking ecosystem. One can imagine the technology being offered to media partners in order for them to live stream their own events on Facebook or their own sites and have a built-in live chat and audience interactivity component.

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1 comment about "Live from Facebook: Let's Put On a Show".
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  1. Brian Hayashi from ConnectMe 360, August 16, 2010 at 3:51 p.m.

    Facebook, like much social media, is leading by showing us an example first.

    Many companies have run their own in-house television networks in the past. As the notion of a personal brand evolves, the standard is migrating from text-based blogs updated a few times a day to something that is more real-time and involving rich media.

    I do not see Facebook trying to commercialize this effort, but I do see them trying to understand what it means for companies to think of themselves as a television channel.

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