Facebook wants you to do it live

When Facebook launched its latest redesign, it became evident that the company was putting a lot of emphasis on real-time information--inspired, undoubtedly, by the runaway success of Twitter. Now the company's rolled out two small but crucial new features that put instant updates even more front and center.

First, Facebook is aiming to use the "publisher" tool--formerly known as the status update box--as members' gateway to the Web at large. Starting Wednesday and rolling out gradually, according to a post on the company blog, a beta version of the new content-sharing box will allow members to select exactly how public or private to make each piece of content that they share. The post by Facebook engineer Ola Okelola explained that something shared on a profile can be visible by friends, friends of friends, friends and networks (school, region, or company), user-created custom friends groups--or everyone on the Web.

Facebook's probably hoping that this will spur people to share more content: if members know that sharing a video, a photo, or even a status message won't by default go out to everyone who can see their profile, they might be more likely to share things along the lines of party photos and videos of their kids.

But, wait. There's more.

In addition, a post on the Facebook developer blog Wednesday explained that developers can now take advantage of live-streaming status update boxes much like the one that CNN used during President Obama's inauguration this January. "With the Live Stream Box on your website, users log in using Facebook Connect and share updates that appear both within the Live Stream Box and on their Facebook profiles and in their friends' home page Streams," the post by Tom Whitnah explained. "Each post includes a link back to the Live Stream Box on your site so users can discover the live event and immediately join based on their friends' recommendations."

It's intended so that people watching an event simultaneously can comment in sync on Facebook. And it's also supposed to be a no-brainer to create your own, meaning that Facebook is hoping a lot of developers and site owners will jump on this bandwagon.

"The Live Stream Box is easy to install and takes just a minute to set up," the post added. "To get the Live Stream Box on your website, get a Facebook API key, upload a small file to your website, and then embed a few lines of code into your Web page."

This is a move clearly aiming in the direction of Twitter, where real-time updates and discussions around events have become so commonplace that members regularly agree on a "hashtag" to flag related posts in advance of the event. (For the inauguration, for example, it was #inaug09.) The question is whether Twitter use has already become the standard for chronicling and commenting on events in real time--will enough people be willing to use Facebook widgets rather than apps built on Twitter?

[monkeyfun14]

Nice story.

[monkeyfun14]

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[Collin1000]

Best summary of the new feature I have read yet... and the title (assuming it is a bill-o pun) made me chuckle.

[cvaldes1831]

It sounds like they're going about it the wrong way.

Developers need to stop focusing on "web browser on a desktop PC" and switch to the mobile device worldview. That's where all the action is. Smartphones (iPhone, Palm, Blackberry) and Internet-capable PMPs like the iPod touch. Many of this planet's inhabitants run their lives around the cellphones (like Japan) and the more powerful these handheld devices become, the less people will be spending in front of a computer.

I've already seen it myself and I fired up my first web browser in 1993 (NCSA Mosaic on a SGI box). I am spending *far* less time in front of a computer these days; my MacBook has left the house twice since Apple activated their App Store last summer.

The future is in the palm of your hand. Web developers *must* understand this if their ideas are to have widespread acceptance.

[theMetz]

It's about time Facebook finally added a feature for outbound content syndication to the social web. For more information on how your marketing and operations teams can use this as part of your strategy, get in touch.

[Inconnux]

cnet is a facebook propaganda division

[nickchhan]

Nice summary of the live stream, thanks Caroline

[akirandres]

hopefully some day, they will collaborate. Like letting Twitter be the status maker for facebook's profiles.

[V2Blast]

You can do that yourself.

This is awesome, it shows Facebooks young team of developers is always thinking with the times and sometimes actually paving the way for new ideas and technology. I for one look forward to it's integration and I'm already thinking of all the ways it can help grow the reach for my Full Impact Studios Dallas Web Design business.

Twitter should possibly be scared of this integration as well..

[calculatorwatch]

Holy ****, the idea of sharing things only to certain friend groups so that people could post things they wouldn't want their facebook-using relatives finding out about (and for other reasons but mostly that one) was totally something i suggested via facebook's "suggest a feature" a couple months or so ago
of course, it's a logical enough feature that someone else probly thought of it first but still, i didn't think it would actually get implemented especially so soon, pretty cool

[hmdz105]

Why don't we have Twitter in Facebook? It could be nice to update our twitters from the inside of our Facebook pages.

[ender21]

But that'd be like launching Windows from inside Mac OS X..... oh wait a minute....

[krizhek]

there's an app for that

[Loud_spkr]

Nice article, however is it Twitter or TenM3 type "live content". Do you get to share only text live or is it live visual feeds of you or the event etc. Is this like a jetson's live video call provided the facebook user permits the call to come thru ?? Does it compete with Gmails video email chat ?