Facebook wants to become one of the biggest video streaming platforms. With Watch Party you can watch and comment on videos with your friends
For some time now, Facebook has declared its intention to expand its area of influence in the world of video streaming as well. It has thus purchased TV rights for various sporting events and improved its video playback platform. The latest innovation, in this sense, is called Watch Party, a kind of "virtual party" between friends watching the same video or program.
The new feature was launched back in January 2018, but in the form of a head for a small number of users. Now that the trials are over, Watch Party is available to all users, who will be able to use it as and when they want. Exactly what is Watch Party and what is it for, though? Let's try to understand it together and also see how to use Watch Party for "video parties" with our friends.
How to use the new Watch Party feature of Facebook
With Watch Party Facebook members (which has reached 1.5 billion unique monthly users) will be able to watch together, within a "virtual room", video recipes, video guides to computer and hi-tech theme, TV series and sporting events and comment on them as if you were really together. In addition to the comments with Watch Party we will also be able to insert reactions in real time, as it already happens on Facebook Live.
The first release of the Watch Party function will take place only within groups but by the end of the year or at the latest at the beginning of 2019 Facebook will release the same function for individual profiles and pages of companies, which in this way will have a tool that can attract a strong interaction and that will help them to receive feedback in real time from their consumers or customers. It is not to be excluded that in the future Facebook will also create dedicated pages based on topics, for example, groups could be born to watch movies, original TV series, video games (as it happens today on Twitch by Amazon), and so on. On the other hand, Facebook several times in recent times has expressed interest in the creation of original content such as TV shows or movies and the transmission of sporting events. To moderate the groups with Watch Party there will be administrators who will report and possibly block users who offend or upload reprehensible content using the new feature.