14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is going forward with its plan for world domination with the launch of a new feature called “Live Stream Box,” allowing Facebook pages to offer chat to go along with their streaming videos. The feature was first used during President Obama's inauguration ceremony, when CNN offered side-by-side chat, powered by the social network, along with the video content. Now, Facebook is making the feature available to any site or developer that wants to offer live chat with their events.
“Today, we're excited to launch the Facebook Live Stream Box as a feature that any website owner or developer can use to enable Facebook users to connect, share, and post updates in real-time as they witness an event online,” Tom Whitnah, Facebook developer, wrote.
“You can run the Live Stream Box next to live streaming videos of concerts, speeches, sporting events, webcasts, TV shows, presentations, or webinars. Or run the Live Stream Box in multi-player games, or with any other experience where many people are visiting a website at the same time,” he added.
The first to take advantage of the chat feature is video-streaming provider Ustream. The streaming site won't enable the feature by default and it will only be available at the request of the artist or the user. Two versions of the Ustream player will be available for now, a free, ad-supported one, which has a limited number of sign-ups, and a premium, white-label version that will charge a one-time payment of $15,000.
Installing the new feature is simple enough and involves uploading a file to your server and then adding a few lines of code. You can embed it in your Facebook page, a Facebook app and even other sites, thanks to the Facebook connect login standard.