Facebook’s answer to Meerkat and Periscope, Facebook Live, which lets users live stream their activities to their Friends News Feed is coming to Android – but only if you live in the US.
The service has expanded to more countries today for iOS users, but Android users outside the US will have to wait just a little longer – Facebook says they will add more countries ‘soon’. Facebook has noted that ‘more than 50% of people watching live videos are using Android devices’ hence the launch on Android, but obviously they want to test the service out on Android first before launching more widely.
The service is rolling out to more than 30 countries for iOS users, but Facebook hasn’t announced precisely which ones – so we’ll have to wait and check our news feeds today to see if Australia is included.
When it does launch, it looks simple to use all you have to do is tap “What’s on your mind?” at the top of News Feed and select the Live Video icon. You can then add a description, select who can see the video and you’re live. Once you’re live you can see stats about who is tuning in and respond to comments in real time. Once you’re finished you can save the video to your timeline to watch later.
Periscope, Meerkat, Facebook Live, all this makes me want is a broader availability of the YouTube Live service that has been on Sony Xperia phones and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+. We’ll see more about Facebook Live when it launches on Android in Australia in the coming months.
