Facebook Live Videos

The Facebook news feed consists of photos, videos, links and status updates. Starting now you will start to see live videos appear in your feed. Live videos were first introduced to iOS users in December 2015 and is now live for Android users in the US. Live videos is a similar service to Periscope and Meerkat. Users can broadcast videos direct from their phone.

According to the press release, Facebook is using the same lessons learnt from ranking video in the newsfeed to Live videos:

“a few years ago when more people began sharing and watching video on Facebook we listened to feedback to learn what signals helped us show people more of the videos they want to see and fewer of the videos they don’t.”

The biggest news from the press release is that Live videos will get priority on the newsfeed, especially those that are Live at the moment:

“Now that more and more people are watching Live videos, we are considering Live Videos as a new content type – different from normal videos – and learning how to rank them for people in News Feed. As a first step, we are making a small update to News Feed so that Facebook Live videos are more likely to appear higher in News Feed when those videos are actually live, compared to after they are no longer live.”

It is a good idea to prioritise Live videos, although it might be more of a perk for people to switch to Facebook Live video from rival streaming services like Periscope.