Facebook Live Gets New Updates to Make Streaming Simpler

• Facebook launched updates for its Live video platform to simplify the setup process.
• The social media company mentioned Live streams have gone up by 150% over the past year.
• The Live API will release, and a new rewind feature is in the works.

Facebook Live is Facebook’s streaming service on the social media platform. Facebook announced new updates to the service to help users set up their streams easier than ever before. The social media company is also testing a rewind feature for the live streaming service.

Facebook revealed today that the number of Live streams on Facebook from verified pages have gone up by 1.5X over the past year. The Live API updates should hit the website soon, and users will be able to set up their streams much faster. The Rewind feature will allow users to rewind a video to view anything they have missed. It is a feature that has been available on YouTube Live for quite some time now.

Image Courtesy of The Verge

Live videos can now be cross-posted across multiple pages at the same time. If a website or organization has multiple pages that they run, they can push out Facebook Live videos for all pages at the same time without having to re-share the links to every page manually. This basic but important feature will finally be added to the platform to help users rewind content instead of having to wait until the live stream ends.

Another feature that is in the works is a stream key for Facebook Live. The keys are part of the setup process, and they can be used to set up new streaming sessions without requiring users to manually go through all of the settings every time. Production teams can use the key tied to an account to easily coordinate streams if things go wrong as well.

Rewind for Facebook Live is already under testing, and it should roll out for all users soon according to Facebook. The persistent stream keys and cross-posting features should roll out for all users by today for all platforms. Mobile users will need to update their apps to get access to the new features.