Live streaming video service Livestream has just released a Facebook application for page owners that offers admins a simple way to stream live video from their Facebook Pages. Livestream is a leading live video destination and platform. Event organizers, content owners, celebrities and artists around the world use Livestream’s social broadcasting tools to engage and grow their audiences on the web, mobile devices, and connected TVs.

Notable content partners include Facebook, The New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, Associated Press, HBO, AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Nike, The Academy Awards, The Foo Fighters, Maroon 5, Ralph Lauren, and Diesel.

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The Gadget

The Livestream for Facebook application works in conjunction with the Livestream Podcaster software for PC and Mac and gives Page owners the ability to stream live to their Facebook Page with a single click. The application is also fully customizable, supports Facebook chat and has features baked in that encourage Page visitors to share activity on their walls.

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While live streaming services like Ustream and Justin.tv have been around for years, they’ve remained relatively niche in nature. Earlier, brands could work with these services to build custom live streaming video experiences into their Pages, but for a cost. Facebook, for instance, partnered with Livestream to power its Facebook Live channel.

Livestream’s do-it-yourself Facebook application for streaming video will no doubt help to popularize the live streaming movement for brands and businesses, especially given that the application is free to use, easy to install and works within Facebook’s familiar (and often viral) confines. This move is a harbinger of the next step in live video streaming, socially.

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The Works

In order to go live all you have to do is get any camera/webcam or produced video feed and download Livestream Procaster – the free desktop app for Mac and PC. Stream live with one-click to your Facebook page, your channel page on livestream.com, your website and mobile devices. In addition, everything will be recorded and made available in an on-demand library. You can also get custom Facebook live streaming applications developed to suit your needs, including pay-per-view, donation, ‘like-to-watch’, live-blogging, multi-channel and much more.

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The Features

• Manage Multiple Pages: With the tab manager you can see all the pages where livestream is installed and add it to the pages where it is not.
• Select from a list of encoding quality provided for the perfect streaming of your event.
• Customize your pages by adding a header image and showing chat or the on-demand library when you set up a channel for your facebook page.
• You can promote your channel through a twitter integration. You can directly use the procaster to send out tweets from your channel about the upcoming live stream.

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The Impact

There is a growing need by brands and artists wanting to live stream inside their Facebook page to engage their community. While Livestream is platform agnostic, the first self-service application to enable live streaming within Facebook pages is an exciting development. Livestream broadcasts over 1.4 million channels and boasts 22 million unique monthly viewers. More than one billion video minutes are streamed each month (50,000 of whom will be watching right now).

There is a clear demand of brands providing live streams of important events and launches. Even a live chat session on Facebook has been driving numbers across the globe. One needs to look no further than the live chat session that Deepika Padukone did for Nescafe that drove hordes of fans to the page. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 World Premier was streamed live through Livestream, giving never before access to the red carpet event to the general fans. HBO, famous for its Pay Per View broadcast of boxing events, nearly doubled its fans base by livestreaming main events on Facebook. Even the India Economic Summit will be going live from November 16.

With a mission to build a next-generation live cable operator, one that is global, social, user friendly, reaches all devices and is accessible to anyone interested in broadcasting an interactive live video experience – for free, Livestream looks set to change the way brands engage their audience.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 3:42 PM and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.