Facebook is now the new destination for those wanting to enjoy live events, but don’t want to be a part of the crowd. The social networker recently choose Lollapalooza music festival for the launch of its new live events streaming feature.
Based on Place Tips
Facebook’s new feature is based on the Place Tips feature, which enables users to access a friend’s posts and info about their recent location. Generally, Place Tips are limited to a nearby location or where one is present physically, but with its new live event streaming feature, Facebook is doing away with the location limitations.
“This Place Tips Lollapalooza experience is just one of the many ways Facebook is trying to help people get the feel of an event when they’re not there,” a Facebook spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal.
The Lollapalooza festival is seen as a test for the new feature, with Facebook promising to find new applications for the feature soon.
Facebook to compete with Snapchat, Twitter
With the new live event streaming, the social media giant plans to compete with rivals Twitter and Snapchat, who are already providing live events coverage. This new feature will show public content, for example, updates from the performers such as Kaskade and Cold War Kids, and pics from the stage along with posts from friends who are attending the events.
The service is quite similar to the ‘Our Story,’ feature launched last year by Snapchat at the Electric Daisy Carnival. Our Story allows the audience to post videos and pics of the events to a single stream. Since the Electric Daisy Carnival, the company has expanded the idea to Snapchat Live, where it broadcasts various live events.
Twitter is also expected to come up with a new live event coverage feature, called Project Lightning, by the end of the year. Project Lightning will offer users a new button on their home screen to show real-time events with live content.
Facebook claims that its remote Place Tips streams are completely different from Snapchat as the users will also be able to view their friends’ posted content as well as content curated from all users.
As of around 11 am EDT Monday, Facebook shares were down 0.23% at $93.79. Year to date the stock is up over 18%, while over the last 12 months, shares are up almost 30%.
