NEW! Facebook Live Video Streaming App
I was recently approached by the team at Vpype to test out their brand new Facebook app that allows you to stream LIVE video directly from your Facebook profile or fan page to your friends and fans!
This app is a gamechanger! Live video streaming meets Facebook. and the best part? It’s FREE!
Vpype allows you to:
- Schedule regular shows
- Broadcast live anytime
- Broadcast as yourself or broadcast as your fan page
- Select specific friends to broadcast to (think private conferencing, trainings, etc!)
- Archive your shows
- Embed any show
- Browse through your Facebook friends’ show recordings
- .and more. 😉
So, last night around 7:30pm PST, I put out a tweet, updated my Facebook profile status and began broadcasting – within a few minutes, we had over 40 participants view the show (ultimately 247 live views) and engage in the chat room from around the U.S. and as far as Singapore, Iceland and Gold Coast, Australia! (See this prompt recap of my Vpype debut by Marianna Fridjonsdottir in Iceland!)
The Vpype Facebook app displays on your Fan Page as a tab called “Shows.”
By the way, here’s a hot Facebook fan page tip: All tabs to the left of Wall and Info can be reordered by dragging and dropping. In the screenshot below, I’ve placed my Shows tab inbetween my Blog and Welcome tabs:
Possible uses of the Vpype Facebook app – some are my ideas, some I asked my peeps in the chat room:
- Live Q&A for fans on your fan page
- Private conferences
- Family chats
- Daily/weekly show with guest experts
- Short tips/tutorial videos – live or pre-recorded
- New product demos
- Classes
- Video book reviews
- Virtual party
- Cooking demonstration
And a few excerpted enthusiastic comments:
We only ran into just a couple hiccups; for some viewers the stream was sticking from time to time (but that depends on variables such as internet speed on the viewer end, of course). Also, the chat area froze one time and I ended up hitting refresh – which temporarily stopped my live broadcast, but the users stayed connected and we ended up picking right back up where we left off. However, the second part didn’t seem to record.
Also, I first published this post with the video embedded – but was a wee bit alarmed to see the video plays on load! So, I took it out. 😉
You can watch the show here. And, I’ve pasted below a screenshot of what the embed looks like. (Btw, the default width is 750px which is rather wide and needs to be sized).
A few items on our features wishlist as a result of this debut show:
- Embedded player does NOT play on load
- Default embed size is 600px
- Notification of who joined/left
- Participants’ names/avatars linked to their Facebook profile
- Ability to pause the chat area (similar to Tweetchat)
- Broadcast inside the “frame” of a fan page tab
- Ability to assign mic/webcam rights to others for live video interview
Vpype officially launches on Monday, March 15, 2010 at the Social Media World Forum in London.
So, what do you think? How will you use live video broadcasting on Facebook? Let me know in the comments below!
Great article, Mari! We have experienced inferior resolution with Vpype when attempting to screen share with the audience and at times, there is latency in the chat stream. Sometimes you have to “reload chat”. But it's great to be an early adopter. You might enjoy my blog article on Vpype at http://www.christinahaftman.com/introducing-vpy…
Thanks for sharing this.
The one downside I can see at the moment is that when I followed the link to check out your video on your Facebook page it seems to ask me to install the Vpype app and that is bound to put some people off viewing the video.
It would be great if it were openly available to view so there is no barrier or extra step for fans of a Page to have to take.
Hmm ok this is absolutely astounding however my concern would be age restricted content. How would that be handled as pages on facebook does not yet have age restricting facilities.
does the Vpype offer that facility?
This is a wonderful way to engage your friends on like a live continuous streaming connection.
Hi Mari
This is fantastic! You are such a trailblazer, always sharing the latest and greatest in technology with us. thank you so much!
Love this app, great to see you live.
See in Ottawa very soon!
Lisa
Thanks Mari,
I think this is amazing, thanks for sharing. I am going to use it to launch my Suzie Cheel fan page ( shifting from Law of attraction in Action) and do Morning Angel card readings.
Have a wonderful weekend- sounded uplifting
I think that have the ability to see avatars and link them to their FB profile is key. Allowing the Moderator to choose a participant and “give them the floor” visually and audio would also be great.
Nice! I tried this app out before Mari and you only got like 1000 credits and then you had to pay for more or something. Glad they don’t have that anymore, at least from what I just looked at.
My only problem is it has a crazy echo on both my mics so I can’t use it. Tried using my webcam mic and then my desktop, studio type microphone…same thing.
Thanks for sharing!
How does this compare with LiveStream?
Very cool. A nice way to merge all of the things I am currently doing in a nice packaged and easy way. Thanks so very much to Mari for sharing her infinite wisdom, yet again. Living la vida fearless, Jan