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

Hillary K. Grigonis
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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.

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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.

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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.

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