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Instagram has all but killed off Snapchat by this point, and it's got a lot to do with the strength of its stories and live video features. With the latest update to version 24, a new 'Request' button has been added to the comments section of live videos to be added to the stream.
The war between Instagram and Snapchat rages on, and the newest weapon in Instagram's arsenal is the introduction of Face Filters to Live. So the next time you need to jump into a live broadcast to your friends, you'll be able to provide an appropriate sense of gravitas with a pair of rabbit ears.
Instagram added its live video feature in December of last year, allowing users to start live streaming directly from the mobile apps. The company has continued to improve live video since then, like adding the ability to save the broadcast after it's over. Another new feature is on the way - guests.
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After announcing Live 360, Facebook is continuing its crusade into the live broadcasting arena with an audio-only format cleverly named Live Audio. The premise is extremely basic: users will be able to broadcast their voices to any subscriber who may be tuning in.
Instagram Live is one of several ways to live stream from your phone, but it always had one catch - you couldn't save the broadcast after it was over. Both Periscope and YouTube mobile streaming support this feature. Thankfully, Instagram now allows you to save live video after the broadcast is over.
Instagram's focus on sharing pictures has expanded steadily ever since the Facebook acquisition, and now it joins its parent company in offering live video. After announcing the feature a few weeks ago, Instagram says the feature is rolling out to all US users this very day. It's a bit different than the way Facebook and others handle live video, though.
It feels like Facebook is on a roll at the moment: Messenger has been getting lots of updates recently, as has WhatsApp, and there's new Instagram UI too. Now it's the turn of the main Facebook app. It would be an understatement to say it needs a lot of development time. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen a complaint about the Facebook app, I'd be richer than Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook recently introduced live video. Now it wants more users to start recording themselves. To entice people to do so, the company has rolled out a few enhancements.
There's this feeling floating around the Internet that Facebook is irrelevant. It's old. The kids have moved on. They're Tumblring, Vine-ing, Snapchatting, and Instagramming (okay, that one's owned by Facebook, but whatever). They wouldn't be caught dead using the same social network their parents sign into. Famous people aren't using it either. They've moved to Twitter.
No sooner did we figure out Google added support for private YouTube videos to the Chromecast, than live videos started working as well. We've been checking around and it looks like almost every live stream is working on the Chromecast, but only from a desktop web browser right now. The Android app still reports an incompatibility with live streams.
Upgrading to a new version of Android is always nice, but Nexus users (and just lately, Google Play Edition users) tend to become unwitting beta testers for a lot of apps. Case in point: MLB At Bat, the official news, scores, and video app for Major League Baseball's online subscription service. It didn't work for Android 4.3 users ever since the new version of Android launched in July, but according to the latest changelog, the updated app should be streaming video to everyone now.