2016 has been a year in which pretty much every social network focused heavily on video, including live broadcasts.
Announcements around this trend are continuing right up to the end of the year too: witness yesterday’s news that Twitter is enabling its users to broadcast live video from within its main app, while Facebook is starting to commission its own shows.
Twitter’s news is essentially a full integration of its Periscope app within the main Twitter app for iOS and Android. Users of the latter can now both watch and broadcast live video without having to jump out to the standalone Periscope app.
Although this feature is ‘powered by Periscope’, there is inevitable speculation that the standalone app will be shut down. For now, Twitter says that’s not the case.
Facebook’s news is just as interesting: the social network is “starting to talk to TV studios and other video producers about licensing shows” according to tech site Recode.
“Our goal is to kickstart an ecosystem of partner content for the tab, so we’re exploring funding some seed video content, including original and licensed scripted, unscripted, and sports content, that takes advantage of mobile and the social interaction unique to Facebook,” said Facebook’s Ricky Van Veen.
No music then, yet. But the sight of Facebook being willing to pay media companies for video content rather than just expecting them to upload it for promotional purposes should not go unnoticed by music rightsholders.
Facebook’s hiring of a director of global music licensing partnerships shows there is scope in 2017 for discussions about what kind of music videos may work well on Facebook, and what the moneymaking model around them will be.
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