Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

Miss the big play? Facebook will now let you rewind live videos

Hillary K. Grigonis
By

Did you miss that essential moment in a Facebook Live broadcast? Facebook will now allow users to rewind livestreams, even before the broadcast has ended. The feature comes alongside other new tools, including the ability to cross-post Live videos to multiple Pages, announced by Facebook this week.

Live Rewind will bring rewind controls to videos as they are streaming and is a direct response to user requests. Facebook says the move will help users go back and see something they missed, or rewatch a play in a sports broadcast. Previously, rewind was only available when watching a Live video after the stream ended, like any other video. Of course, if you rewind a live video, the person streaming it isn’t going to wait for you to catch up again — so you may miss something else, or just have to be content watching the stream with a delay.

Recommended Videos

Business accounts will also now be able to cross-post videos to multiple Facebook Pages. The live videos, when cross-posted, will appear as original posts on each page. The change also allows Pages to aggregate the views to see how many total views the video received across the different sources. This option was previously available for prerecorded videos but is just now rolling out for Facebook Live.

Related

Along with rewind and cross-posting, Facebook is also launching persistent stream keys. Publishers use the stream keys to coordinate efforts within the team. Previously, a new key was needed for every video. Now, users can have a permanent stream key, simplifying the process when working with collaborators on a live project. Facebook says the permanent key was another feature requested by creators, and that the feature is available both in Pages and the Live API.

Facebook says the new tools are designed to help publishers simplify the broadcast experience and help grow their audiences while giving viewers additional flexibility within Live. “As Facebook Live continues to grow, we’ve seen people and publishers around the world find new and innovative ways to tell incredible stories, interact with their communities, and bring the world closer together,” Matt Labunka, a product manager for Facebook Live, wrote in a blog post. “With daily average broadcasts from verified publisher Pages increasing 1.5 times over the past year, our team has been focused on building new tools to help broadcasters create Live video experiences for all kinds of audiences.”

Facebook Live has grown steadily over the last few years since the feature rolled out to all users. Ten million users went live last New Year’s Eve, a 47 percent increase over the previous year.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
How to go live on Facebook
Facebook LIve

Facebook Live lets you livestream video directly from your Android or iOS device. Creating and streaming live content might sound like a challenge, but setting up a livestream within Facebook's mobile app is a fairly straightforward process. Here's how to go live.
Getting started
Step 1: The first step to setting up a livestream is to launch the Facebook app as you would normally. From the News Feed tab, locate the Live button just below the What's on Your Mind? section at the top of your display. (Note: The screenshots below are from the iOS version, but the steps also apply to Android.)

Step 2: Next, tap either the Live button or the What's on Your Mind? field at the top, the latter of which will bring up a host of additional options, including a Live Video button.

Read more
You can now download Facebook’s Messenger app to your desktop
Facebook Messenger Desktop App

Facebook launched a Messenger desktop app for Windows and macOS on Thursday, allowing users to text, voice and video chat for free outside of the social media platform’s website.

In a press release, Facebook noted, “Over the past month, we saw more than a 100% increase in people using their desktop browser for audio and video calling on Messenger.”

Read more
Facebook’s latest experimental app lets you document your hobbies
Facebook Hobbi screenshots

Facebook’s year-old New Product Experimentation (NPE) division, where developers are tasked with building unique and experimental tools, has released its fourth app, according to The Information. Called Hobbi, the new app, as its name suggests, allows users to document and keep tabs on the progress of their personal projects or hobbies.

You can easily mistake Hobbi for a Pinterest clone, as much of its design is clearly inspired by the photo-sharing social network. But Hobbi is a more personal platform and doesn’t even have a social networking component. Facebook bills it as a place where you can "capture and organize your creative process." The app lets you sort pictures of your projects in various collections such as home decor, fitness, music, and what have you.

Read more