Facebook is Bringing Livestreaming To The IPhone

Just on the heels of posting stellar earnings, Facebook is opening live video broadcasting to all iPhone users in the U.S.

The option to show live video is being turned on Thursday for everyone with Facebook’s app installed on an iPhone. The California based Company plans to extend the iPhone feature to all 1.6 billion of its worldwide users in the next few weeks.

The feature will enable Facebook users to share live video with friends and family. It’s similar to the live video app called Periscope that Twitter introduced on its messaging service last year.

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The Company stated that the feature would be extended to other countries in the coming weeks, stressing that they are currently working on adding it to its app for Android devices.

“It has been inspiring to see all the ways that people have used Live to connect with their friends and family,” Facebook product manager Vadim Lavrusik said in a blog post.

“We’re excited to expand the ability to share live video to everyone in the US via iPhone, and we plan to start rolling this out to the rest of the world over the coming weeks.”

Live videos can be found in News Feed at Facebook accounts, and people can subscribe to friends or public figures to be notified about live broadcasts.

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In the summer, Facebook began offering live video streaming to celebrities, journalists and other public figures, which is why so many of us now see live video in our news feeds. Then Facebook began slowly opening the program up to more of its 1.5 billion members.

Facebook is hoping the additional choices will encourage people to share their thoughts more frequently and hang out on the social network for even longer periods than they already do.

Facebook during its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday said that its users watch 100 million hours of video each day, and that 500 million people watch video daily on the social network.

Facebook shares were up more than 16 percent to $109.87 as the close of trading neared on Thursday.

Revenue in the quarter that ended on December 31 rose to $5.84 billion from $3.85 billion the prior year, with Net profit climbing $3.7 billion from $2.9 billion in 2014

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