Facebook just announced its Live 360 service last week and now offers another to broadcast online radio broadcasts via Live Audio
Facebook Live Audio, initially available only to select publishers and authors will bring to the social network the ability to listen to readings from books, interviews and radio newspapers. The service will then be extended to everyone at the beginning of next year.
The first publishers to inaugurate the new Facebook Live Audio service will be BBC World Service (radio newspapers), LBC (leader in the radio talk show sector in Great Britain), Harper Collins (book publisher), and authors such as Adam Grant and Britt Bennett respectively authors of the books Originals (on pop psychology) and The Mothers. Facebook Live Audio, as Facebook explains on its official blog, is a complement to the very recent Live video streaming service. The goal is to enable everyone, but especially publishers and authors, to propose audio content - such as podcasts - within the News Feed and to offer the possibility to broadcast in real time even to those who do not have broadband connections.
Facebook Live Audio for everyone
Facebook, always explains from the pages of its blog, that they realized that sometimes "publishers want to tell a story on Facebook more with words than with video." When publishers and authors create an audio content they will be able to either use their profile cover image, which will be displayed during the live broadcast within the News Feed, or upload another one for the occasion. Notification of the event will be sent to all subscribers to that Live page, and to the most loyal users. The broadcasts will have a maximum limit of four hours in order to accommodate a wide variety of content such as, for example, programs from radio stations, episodic podcasts, authors reading their books to users, questions and answers to celebrities, news coming from areas affected by some disaster and concerts or studio sessions by musicians, singers or bands.
Background Radio on Facebook
Android users will be able to close Facebook and use any other application while continuing to listen, while users of iOS devices can move around within Facebook but opening another program will interrupt the broadcast of Facebook Live Audio.