Facebook is always looking to improve its services to users. That can include helping you move on from your ex girlfriend/boyfriend or cut down on those annoying Candy Crush notifications that plague our online social lives. The company also labors endlessly to bring us new ways to share moments of our lives to our followers, and Facebook has two new features that are going live for limited public testing as of today.
First on the list is Facebook's Collage feature, which is a style tool for your photos and videos. You start by selecting the photos and videos you'd like to share and Facebook mashes them together into a fun slide-show with seamless transitions, panning animation. With all of the automation required for the Collage feature, it is sure to be a hit among users that would prefer to group an entire experience or event into a single feed.
The second Facebook feature entering limited testing is Live Video. This one will let you live-stream video to your followers using either your front or rear-facing cameras. Live Video looks and behaves very similar to the game-streaming service Twitch. You can have a live text-based chat feed, viewer list and a viewer count next to your live feed preview while you show yourself off to the online world. The feature shows the ability to swap cameras and engage the text feed without breaking the stream. Once you've concluded your live stream, the video will be saved to your timeline for on-demand viewing. You can also choose to be notified when your favorite streamers go live.
It is assumed that everyone will be able to get in on these features in time, but there are qualifications for the initial rollout of Collage and Live Video. If you want in today, you'll need to be in the United States and own an iPhone. Facebook says they're starting with a smaller number of people and expect to make both features more widely available in time for all iPhone users. Android owners within the United States can expect to Collage early next year, but Facebook didn't specify if/when its Live Video feature would debut on the platform. As for Windows Phone users, no love for now, but it's feasible that Facebook would include the features when it rolls out its new universal app for the Windows 10 ecosystem.
Source: Facebook Newsroom
