The 1.65 billion monthly active users of facebook, makes it the most powerful social media tool available. According to statista, active facebook users worldwide have been increasing for the past 8 years. The social networking site generates 4.5 billion likes daily as of March 2013.
What’s new?
Facebook has added another remarkable feature that will certainly change the way we consume certain contents and the means by which we receive them. We can now share our moments with our friends and connections on Facebook in real time. Live! No need to delay the moments. We watch it as it happens.
How has it been received?
Facebook users have received the feature with joy and many are already utilizing this incredible feature. A few of my connections on facebook have already gone live a few occasions. Some notable pages that I follow have also gone live and it’s such a great thing.
Implications
Watch anything anywhere: You can sit at home, in the bus, or wherever you find yourself with your phone and watch live the parties and events in the life of your friends. This draws you into the moment and into the mood.
Fresh news: News delivery will be faster than ever. No need to wait for the news on the hour. Anyone can break the news as long as there’s a smartphone in hand. We like our contents fresh and that’s exactly what facebook live streaming is giving us.
Direct competition with media companies: Media houses are now faced with a bigger task than ever, as they compete not only among themselves but also with the ordinary smartphone owner, who now has the technology to break news and stream videos to a large following. Local television stations will have to compete with the likes of Harvard, BBC, Time, Celebrities, just to mention a few, for the eyes of the 18-34years age group, as these brands stream videos on facebook. From corner of your room you can have access to discussions by Harvard tutors, and others that hitherto were not accessible.
On-demand video on mobile devices has become increasingly popular. It is the key driver of mobile data growth, with a 66% annual increase through to 2019 compared with 57% for data as a whole. Ericsson’s consumer research into active TV and internet users shows that 27% of Germans use a mobile device to watch TV or video on a weekly basis – according to GSMA ‘The Mobile Economy’ 2015.
Media Enabler: But if these local media organisations position themselves well, this technology would rather become an enabler rather than a constraint. They would be able to break news faster via their facebook pages. They should also be able to gather a bigger audience with exciting live content.
Legal frameworks: The Facebook live streaming also means we are going to see more and more amateur video content and somewhat offensive content if this is not properly regulated. The legal and regulatory requirements concerning journalism and content sharing in different countries will have to be updated or amended to allow the full utilization of the feature. It’s going to be a mix of live videos as facebook users stream exciting videos like parties, graduation etc and gory ones like horrible accidient scenes as well, without any forewarning.
Facebook reports there are 1.51 billion mobile active users for March 2016. Imagine what these devices will be streaming in the months and years to come