Facebook is serious about its Live feature, and now has gone further by introducing an interactive map that shows locations of all live-streaming videos around the world.
Do you want to know what people are doing in Brazil? Users in Paris? Or in the Indonesia? Facebook has it in its Live video map.
The feature first became useful on Facebook's desktop website. When a Facebook user is live-streaming publicly (not private), via Facebook Live, everyone else is turned candid. To access the feature, users just need to click on the "Live Video" button on the left-hand side of the navigation bar of the Facebook home page, or access it straight using its URL.
The interactive map will open up showing the globe with little blue dots scattered. Not limited to Facebook users, anyone can see it.
With the world's map now open, those little blue dots are marking the spots where people are currently streaming live videos. When viewers hover on one of the dots, they'll see the preview of the video.
The majority of streamers however seemed to be doing the usual stuffs of selfie, eating, playing, dancing, playing music, sitting in class or anything else in between. While these may not be the stream to interest many people to watch more than a few seconds at most, Facebook lines its left side of the Live Video map with recommended streams from major media outlets and personalities.
Those people are those that make up the larger pulsing dots. Hovering on those bigger dots will display spreading lines that span across the globe - showing the location of viewers of the particular video. The dots will become larger as more viewers are viewing them.
Viewers can also see where other viewers are coming from by hovering on a feed.
More People = More Feed = More Risks
Turning everyone into a walking camera is a good thing. To the very least, you can see what people are seeing in real-life. You can follow those that you like and see events as they happen. But this is somehow part of voyeurism that opens up a massive privacy risks.
Not just you, the whole world is. Considering that Facebook is already having most of the internet's population.
One of the example was the Tonga-born Kali Kanongata that accidentally live-streamed the full 45-minute birth of his son from California to hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world. At first, he thought that he was live-streaming to only his family and friends in Tonga. When Kanongata realized what has happened, the moment was too late. the video has been watched live by more than 120,000 people. He became suspicious after he realized that the video was more public than he had thought. At first, he considered to stop the streaming process, but chose to keep going.
"There's a lot of negative stuff on Facebook and so I thought this would be positive," he said. "I figured as long as I kept it PG - this is a birth - it's something to be happy about."
Some videos that are meant to be seen by some chosen people, aren't really meant for the world. To keep things specific, before users start to stream video, a grey toggle button appears as users tilt the video before going live. This button will tell them to whom the video will be shown.
"Public" means that the feed will show on the map as the blue dots, making it available for everyone to tune in and see. Clicking on the toggle button will switch it to "Friends", Friends except.." and "Only Me".
Clicking on the "More..." button will reveal further options that include a custom list of friends, people or any list you have made.
And as for viewers, they can send an invitation to their friends to watch a live-streaming with them. The option is right on the next of the live video using the invite icon. The person selected will receive a push notification with the invitation.
Facebook Is Serious About Video
When Facebook started to compete with YouTube when it delivers its own hosted video feature, people are thinking that Google is Facebook's next target. But as a social media network, its sheer size means that it could do a lot more than that, and that is to do things that a lot of others are doing in the competition.
This major update clearly shows Facebook's commitment to put video into its priority lists. Facebook Live looks to compete against apps like Snapchat, Meerkat and Periscope which offer a very similar live-streaming feature.
And again with its massive size and users, people can expect more engagement.
"Live videos get 10 times as many comments as regular videos," said Will Cathcart, Facebook's VP of Product Management. "As people get better cameras in their phones that can take better pictures and video, we've sought more and more to make video a well-supported part of Facebook."
"We have been surprised with the positive reaction to Live so far as people have really taken this up, whether they are sharing with their friends and family, the world or their fans."