Facebook Launches 50-Person Live Streams With Messenger Rooms

Facebook is launching a new way to broadcast live with up to 50 people to Facebook from Messenger Rooms.

Use of Facebook Live has only continued to remain high following its spike back in March. This is because, with the COVID-19 pandemic, most indoor public spaces have been shut down and people are turning to Facebook Live as a virtual venue for activities such as work out classes, cooking lessons, faith services, hosting a book club with friends, interviewing a panel of experts, or broadcasting with the friends for fun. Going live from a Messenger Room lets you expand the audience potential of your group discussion and interact with audiences of any size.

From Messenger Rooms to Live

As people are turning to Facebook Live more than ever to stay connected, the company says that live broadcasts from pages have doubled in June 2020 as compared to the same time the previous year. People are finding creative ways – like artists raising money for efforts they care about, local zoos hosting daily safari adventures, worshippers coming together for worship and couples exchanging vows- to connect through Facebook Live.

Earlier, Facebook allowed only two accounts to stream their live video.  As people continue to practice safe social distancing, this limitation of Facebook Live has become a major issue.

To bring more people together in a video call, Facebook has launched Messenger Rooms-– a platform for drop-in video chats, now with up to 50 people at the same time. This video chat room makes it easy to have informal conversations with your loved ones, audiences as well as with people who share similar interests. Also, video calls have no time limit and include features like augmented reality filters.

With the new update of turning Messenger Rooms into 50-person live streams, it’s now possible to have dozens of people to connect and create content from the comfort of their own home.

How to Live Broadcast via Messenger Room

To broadcast a live video, you can create a room that can go live right from Facebook or Messenger web, and invite anyone to join, even if they don’t have a Facebook account.

One can join the Messenger Room from their phone or computer by clicking the link shared to them by the Messenger Room creator.

During the broadcast, the Messenger Room creator has full control over everything, such as:

1. Can broadcast the Messenger Room to a profile, page, or group.

2. Inviting users to participate in the room.

3. Allowing users to control live broadcasts.

4. Add or remove participants from the live broadcast at any time.

5. Lock and unlock a room during the live broadcast.

It is also possible for participants to leave the live broadcast at any time.  All with these controls in place, Facebook Pages can easily broadcast multi-person live streams with all remote participants.

When a room is broadcasted via Facebook Live, people outside the room (who see the broadcast in their news feed) can click to tune in, and they will be able to see what is happening in the room and where the room is shared on Facebook – just like viewing any other live stream on Facebook. Also, once you logged in to FB or Messenger and joined a room, others will be able to see your FB profile name, image and will also know that you are participating in the room. 

This feature is currently available to some countries on Facebook and Messenger web and will soon be available to the rest of the world. It will also be available to the Facebook and Messenger mobile app and Messenger desktop app as well.  The countries that do not have access to this video calling platform can view the live broadcasts of Messenger Rooms from others.

With this new update to Messenger Rooms, the company expects that all the issues FB has faced due to their live stream video before will be resolved. Along with this, Facebook also expanded their Messenger’s app screen sharing capability in video calls and Messenger Rooms for iOS and Android mobile devices. As people are trying to stay connected more than ever, Facebook is updating its features to bring people closer together.