Twitter’s live streaming app Periscope is presenting some new features intended to enhance the experience of watching live broadcasts. This feature will make it easier to find the best broadcasts on Periscope, and the Replay Highlights feature will automatically generate a short trailer for every periscope broadcast.
The feature will help you watch highlights from the show you might’ve missed or highlights about any timely topic. Periscope said that they look for a variety of signals to determine what parts of a replay should be included in the highlights, and these parameters will improve over time.
The live streaming app also announced that starting today, and we will be able to embed periscopes anywhere on the web by embedding the Tweet. They also announced that some media outlets like El Pais, Le Parisien, Mashable, Mic, RT, Veja Sao Paulo and Washington Post are already using this feature to bring their stories to life.
“On Android, live broadcasts will auto play in the Watch Tab and Global Feed without sound, so you can see what’s happening around the world immediately when you open Periscope. If you find a broadcast interesting, you can simply tap to get the full live experience. “ said Periscope on their official blog.
Regarding the availability of these new features, Periscope reported that Replay highlights would be available on iOS and Android in the next few days, while autoplay will be available on Android first and the iOS version should be coming soon.
On the other hand, Twitter’s broadcast rival Facebook began rolling out several updates to improve their live stream experience this week. Facebook Live will now allow people and page administrators to stream up to 4 hours per session, being also able to do so in video-only mode and fullscreen mode. These options, as Facebook described them, are intended to benefit both the viewers and creators.
Facebook Live feature was launched last year, and back then it limited broadcasts to be two hours long per session. Facebook revealed that broadcast limitations would be double due to both publishers and viewers requests to have longer live streams, this update will be available on Facebook’s app and the Live API.
As stated before, Facebook disclosed that they updated how to consume live broadcasts as well. Starting today, we will be able to watch live broadcasts using the fullscreen mode. This means that if you’re doing so on an iOS device, it’ll go full screen in portrait and landscape mode. On Android devices, full-screen mode is only supported in portrait mode
It was also announced that there is a new optional feature during live broadcasts that will allow you to hide reactions and comments. They stated that some people prefer to watch what is happening without being distracted by feedback. To enable this option you only have to swipe to the right; Swiping left will bring the comments and reactions back to the broadcast.
These are the most recent updates from both Facebook and Twitter’s Periscope that is heating up the live stream competition which also includes YouTube as one of the strongest competitors.
Source: USA Today