Facebook Tests Live Split-screen Broadcasts: This Week in Social Media

Facebook Tests Live Split-screen Broadcasts: This Week in Social Media

Author: Grace Duffy / Source: socialmediaexaminer.com Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay u

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Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news.

To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

What’s New This Week

Facebook Tests Native Split-screen, Two-person Live Broadcasts: This week, Social Media Examiner staff reported that Facebook appears to be slowly rolling out native split-screen, two-person broadcasts in Facebook Live. This new feature is currently limited to personal profiles on Facebook’s iOS mobile app for iPhone. It doesn’t seem to be available for Android or desktop and hasn’t been extended to pages. Select users can go live from their personal profiles and then invite one other iOS user to participate in the broadcast as he or she begins watching.

Social Media Examiner tested the native split-screen, two-person broadcasts in Facebook Live.
Social Media Examiner tested the native split-screen, two-person broadcasts in Facebook Live.

Facebook initially announced two-person remote broadcasts along with other upcoming updates at VidCon 2016; however, the company hasn’t yet released any official news or announcements about this recent rollout. To learn more about this new feature, listen to the Social Media Marketing Talk Show from April 7, 2017.

LinkedIn Introduces LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms: LinkedIn launched LinkedIn lead gen forms, “an easy way to collect quality leads for your business” from sponsored campaigns. Rather than directing prospects to “a clunky contact form on a smartphone” when they click on an ad, the new feature uses their current member profile information to automatically populate an in-app form that can be submitted instantly. Sponsored content campaigns running with the new lead gen forms are currently only supported on the LinkedIn mobile app; however, LinkedIn plans to expand this capability to desktop campaigns and sponsored InMail campaigns for both mobile and desktop “in the coming months.”

LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms are an easy way to collect quality leads from mobile users.
LinkedIn lead gen forms are an easy way to collect quality leads from mobile users.

Crowdcast Introduces Multistreams: Crowdcast rolled out Multistreams, a new feature that allows users “to stream their Crowdcast event directly to Facebook Live, Periscope, YouTube Live, and more… and [reach] a much wider audience.” It also offers a “custom output option” for linking other third-party services or platforms not listed in Crowdcast’s Complete Guide to Multistreams. This new feature essentially makes Crowdcast “the command center for your live video events” and allows seamless sharing of your broadcast across the different platforms.

Facebook Tests Free Version of Workplace: CNBC reports “Facebook is introducing a free version of Workplace, its social networking tool for workers to chat and collaborate.” The new product, which is still being tested, will have the same “look and feel… as the paid version” of the tool. However, it won’t offer companies the administrative and analytics tools available to paying subscribers. The free version of Facebook Workplace will be called Workplace Standard and the paid version will be called Workplace Premium.

Facebook is introducing a free version of Workplace, its social networking tool for workers to chat and collaborate.
Facebook is introducing a free version of Workplace, its social networking tool for workers to chat and collaborate.

YouTube Removes Ads From Channels With Fewer Than 10K Views: YouTube announced that it will no longer serve ads on YouTube Partner Program videos until the channel reaches 10K lifetime views. The company considers this to be an appropriate threshold “to determine the validity of a channel… [and] confirm if a channel is following [YouTube’s] community guidelines and advertiser policies.” For example, YouTube reports “seeing cases of abuse where great, original content is re-uploaded by others who try to earn revenue from it,” and the new protocol is meant to safeguard original creators against such violations.

YouTube assures its users and audience that this threshold will have “minimal impact on [its] aspiring creators… [and] of course, any revenue earned on channels with under 10K views up until [this change] will not be impacted.” YouTube also shared that “in the next few weeks” it will implement a new review process for creators who apply to be in the YouTube Partner Program.

Our Take on Top News This Week

In this week’s show from Friday, April 7, 2017, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include Facebook Live Split Screen (6:14), updates to Twitter (29:45), and the upcoming free version of Facebook Workplace (39:01). Subscribe to future shows here.

More News to Note

YouTube Launches Live TV Service in the U.S.: YouTube released its live TV service, YouTube TV, to five major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These cities include San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, “with more U.S. markets coming soon.” For $35 per month, the subscription service provides more than 40 channels including ABC, CBS, NBC, and ESPN; allows simultaneous streaming of different programming to up to six different devices; provides unlimited DVR cloud storage; and more.

YouTube is offering a one-month free trial on the YouTube TV site. Viewers can also sign up on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Others who aren’t in the initial launch markets can sign up to be notified when YouTube TV will be available in their area.

Periscope Pushes Live 360 Broadcasting Capability to All Mobile Users: Periscope announced that now “anyone broadcasting with Periscope for iOS or through Producer can go live in 360.” Periscope notes that an updated version of the iOS app is required to broadcast in 360 and Android users will need to use Periscope Producer. However, anyone can watch a 360 video on iOS, Android, and all web browsers except for Safari.

Starting today, anyone broadcasting with Periscope for iOS or through Producer can go live in 360! Here’s how: https://t.co/6BTIV4VjPl

Twitter Rolls Out Twitter Lite: Twitter introduced Twitter Lite, “a new mobile web experience which minimizes data usage, loads quickly on slower connections, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1MB on your device.” Twitter Lite is also “optimized… for speed, with up to 30% faster launch times as well as quicker navigation throughout Twitter.” However, Twitter Lite provides all of Twitter’s key features including “your timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, notifications, and more.” Twitter Lite is now available globally.

Twitter Lite is a faster, data friendly way for people to use Twitter to see what’s happening in the world.

Pinterest Integrates Shortcuts to New Android Phones: Last week, it was announced that Pinterest’s Lens…

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