Yesterday I was reading tweets from friends in Israel who were mentioning a live streaming setup similar to the one CNN had during the inauguration. Today, Orli Yakuel posted a screenshot to Flickr of the event. This is the second time that Facebook has integrated a streaming news feed for coverage of an event. This year’s election in Israel is a historic one with all of the buzz surrounding the recent Gaza conflict and other regional political tension.
Now that Facebook has a solid news feed integration solution for media companies, it appears that they will be working to partner with other media companies for more interactive event coverage. Facebook also recently used their old polling application to obtain live poll results from across Facebook during the World Economic Forum. While Twitter has been one of the leading solutions for live event coverage, Facebook has been focusing on more broad-based event partnerships.
It appears that Facebook has been focused on supporting larger events, yet it would be interesting to see Facebook provide a more integrated solution that companies can self-implement. It’s most definitely one service that Facebook could charge for and something many media companies would benefit from. Historic events have been a primary focus for Facebook as few other events attract some many individuals.
It’s also a great way for Facebook to encourage new members to register. While competing MySpace
has produced a few election related products, there has yet to be any product launched with the type of integration found through Facebook Connect. The few implementations of live event coverage with Facebook Connect integration have proven to have a strong impact.
The only remaining question is when will we see Facebook provide an easy way for any company to integrate this interactive viewing environment? Hulu, who was supposed to be a launch partner, could prove to be a huge opportunity for Facebook Connect by providing a robust interactive environment in contrast to their existing forum platform.
For now we will have to sit and wait but it’s most definitely exciting to see these new implementations of Facebook Connect roll out.
Nick, we are excited about this event, too, here at Nana10.
We tried following the success of CNN’s event, hoping it will work smoothly, and it did!
For the first time, it felt like we’re not only providing an alternative to the TV broadcast, but a real added value. People left their couch and came to Nana10 for an interactive and collaborative event.
The authenticity of Facebook profiles kept the discussion clean from abusers, which obviously helped the entire experience.
We are planning to develop this ability a bit deeper and offer it with other live broadcasts, including the Survivor season running these days.
Thanks for the support from Facebook
Comment by Facebook User — February 11, 2009 @ 4:29 am
Thanks Nick! We’re really excited about seeing the Nana10 integration with Facebook Connect too. I think it shows a lot of the potential for what sites can do using Facebook Connect.
What’s really exciting here is the Nana team built this all on their own integrating with all of the latest and greatest Facebook APIs. We encourage all developers to push the limits of what they can do with Connect, we can’t wait to see the results!
Comment by Facebook User — February 11, 2009 @ 1:29 pm