Facebook takes on Periscope with Live video push

Facebook is taking on Twitter’s Periscope by expanding its Live video tool with a dedicated tab in the Facebook app.

The tool features a geolocation map that shows streams around the world, and Snapchat-style doodles and black-and-white options.
In recent weeks Facebook has been pushing influential brands and celebrities to use Facebook Live .
Sources say Facebook is paying the New York Times, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, among other publishers in a bid to get more brands and users on board (and away from rivals such as Snapchat and Periscope.
Now users will have the ability to go live in Facebook Groups and Events, access interactive features (including live reactions, replaying comments and live filters) and invite friends to watch a live stream with them.

There will also be a dedicated place on Facebook’s mobile app “where you can discover live video that the world is talking about” and a Facebook Live Map on desktop, which will give people in more than 60 countries the opportunity to share live video.
“Videos are worth a thousand pictures,” Fidji Simo, the product director in charge of Facebook’s Live video push, said at an event held in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning.
Simo said Facebook’s video efforts date back to 2007, but the push to live video began in 2013 when the company began thinking about video “as pictures coming to life”

Then came the interest from consumers. For example, 70 million people uploaded Ice Bucket Challenge videos to the platform.
“One trend we’ve seen is people want to have more immersive experiences,” Simo added.
Facebook first launched Live in August of 2015 with a handful of celebrities including The Rock, Ashley Tisdale an
Watch Mark Zuckerberg’s own Live video here: